Ramble On
by KuryakinGirl
Summary: Dean spent some time in New Orleans before John went missing. He found something more than just a Supernatural occurrence there. Pre-pilot.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer—Recognizable characters belong to Eric Kripke. Any similarity to events or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No copyright infringement intended.

Author's Notes—I hate to say how long this has been in the works, but it's been on my computer for... a while. We'll leave it at that. :) Many thanks again to Malther and penknight for their valuable input and patience.

Spoilers—Vague references to the Pilot and Home in Season 1.

Feedback—Always greatly appreciated.

Ramble On—Dean spent some time in New Orleans before John went missing. He found something more than just a Supernatural occurrence there.

* * *

Now...

He sat in the corner booth at the roadside diner. The regional newspaper was spread out on the table in front of him, next to the empty lunch plate that had held a decent club sandwich and potato wedges. The soda in his glass was watered down now from the melted ice, as he'd spent most of his energies in the restaurant on research. Research was one of the necessary evils of his job. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, professionally trained in the gathering of information. It was something he had learned from his father.

He smiled slightly, thinking about the man who taught him everything he knew. His father was special. Hell, his whole family was. Not everyone would want, or be as dedicated to, the job that he shared with his family. Ghost hunting, after all, didn't look so good on a résumé.

That was one thing Dean Winchester had never had a need for: a résumé. His father, John, trained him, teaching him everything he would need to get by, including as anything he needed to be, especially given the types of precarious situations the Winchesters often found themselves in the midst of.

At least, Dean and John had no trouble adjusting to the shifting winds. Dean's little brother Sam was another story all together. Every now and again, Dean wondered about his kid brother. He would always feel protective towards him. After all, it had been Dean's responsibility to carry Sam to safety, out of their burning house.

It hadn't been just any blaze either. The fires of Hell itself were let loose upon Sam's nursery ceiling all those years ago.

Dean tried to keep his past safe and sound on Memory Lane. Visiting those particularly rough years of his childhood had never been his idea of fun. Besides, he had a very important job to do. He needed to remain calm, focused, and alert in order to face what others dared not even think about, let alone believe.

He folded up the newspaper and dropped a few dollars on the table for the waitress before standing. He carried the paper under his arm, safe from the prying eyes of other patrons who might wonder why he had circled an obituary notice. Ambling to the counter, he paid for his meal before stepping out into the bright sunshine.

It was October in Louisiana, but the midday temperatures were still somewhat warm. When nighttime rolled around, he'd break out his leather jacket. For now, it was tucked away safely in the backseat of his vintage 1967 Chevy Impala.

Sliding into the driver's seat, he set the newspaper down beside him then started the car. He smiled as it made the familiar growl, roaring to life. Pulling out of the parking lot, he got back onto Highway 61. According to the sign up ahead, New Orleans wasn't too much farther.

The obituary in the paper talked about the untimely demise of a well known attorney in his mid-fifties. Earlier in the week, John had found an article describing the sudden death of the exercise enthusiast, in otherwise perfect health, who simply fell dead in the midst of trial preparation, in front of associates and assistants. He encouraged his older boy to venture off to the Big Easy by himself.

John had hoped, if all of his other parenting skills ultimately failed, that the one thing he successfully instilled in his boys would be self-confidence, enough to get them through the various trials and tribulations that would fill their lives. John knew he had done so with Sam. In fact, he'd managed to help make Sam so self-sufficient that he estranged himself from the rest of the Winchester clan. Dean, however, had been on John's side since day one.

Of course, Dean still had memories of the fire that night, whereas Sam had no recollection of his mother or the evil that stole her away from them.

John knew Dean was capable of dealing with whatever paranormal activity lurked in New Orleans. And he wanted Dean to see that he could handle investigations--hunts--by his own wits alone.

Dean had only the faintest sketch of the story from the newspaper and the single online article. But, even the vaguest of information gave him a good start.

Alain Martin was a senior partner at his prestigious law firm in the very heart of New Orleans. After all, it was his name on the door: Griffin and Martin. Surely someone at the firm might be willing to share some information, since it doubled as the crime scene.

The obituary claimed he was survived by a daughter and a brother or two, but made no mention of a wife, leading Dean to believe the good attorney was divorced. He pondered, as he continued his drive into the city, what had transpired in his marital life, if anything. Court records would certainly let him know.

The last lines of the obituary said that autopsy reports were still pending, and no funeral arrangements had been made yet. That meant Mr. Martin, Esquire, was still in a holding pattern at the city morgue. Dean could easily check that out.

Any of those three locations would be a good place to start, but he opted to check out the luxurious legal suites first. They occupied the sixth floor of an office building near the courthouse. Dean parked the Impala in what seemed like a good central location.

He entered the lobby and moved directly for the elevator. Upon his arrival on the appropriate floor, Dean could tell immediately that Martin's coworkers had been hit hard by the news. The vibe he sensed was one of sorrow. It wasn't new. His business was closely related with death. If he wasn't solving murders, he was making sure paranormal killers were put to rest once and for all. This was all old hat to Dean by now, who had been in the business practically his entire life.

In a way, the Winchester family were angels of mercy, freeing souls from their treacherous limbo, allowing the spirits to be at peace, in one way or another.

So, he knew death well, along with all the various stages that survivors went through. The mood at the law firm was exactly within the psychological norms. It provided the precise environment that Dean needed for the initial investigative stage of his visit. Vacant, distracted workers would allow anyone to walk in and amongst them, without question, even those in torn blue jeans while everyone else wore expensive three-piece suits.

Making his way through the law office, he walked with a sense of purpose, just in case someone might've been more alert than the rest. He'd often found that confidence was his best disguise: if you looked like you were supposed to be there, then you were supposed to be there.

He passed various cubicles and an extensive law library, whose open double doors had been barred with yellow police tape. The scene of the crime. He'd seen many in his extensive career, but never any that didn't seem to have anything marked as evidence. He was able to see the outline on the carpet, but no obvious blood stains. No spatter, no nothing. With the tape in place, he knew it was still an active crime scene. Something was definitely still amiss in the room; the police weren't done there yet.

Continuing on, he found one particular secretary in disarray, especially despondent. The plate on her desk read: Collette Fontaine. She was pretty, or would've been without her brow knitted in grief. Just beyond her desk, Dean spotted a frosted glass door with a name printed in bold black letters: "Alain F. Martin, Senior Partner."

He slowly approached her desk. "Excuse me," Dean began. When she turned her tear-streaked face to him, he offered her a slight smile. "Hi... I'm a law student, LSU. Mr. Martin spoke at one of my classes…"

"Civil procedure?" she asked, sniffling. "Dr. Wesby's lecture class?"

Dean smiled. Sometimes it was just too easy. "Yeah. He was so inspiring… He made such an impression on me, my classmates. When I heard what happened, I wanted to come here, see if there was anything I could do…"

Sniffling again, she shook her blonde head slowly.

"Were you there?" he asked as gently as he could.

Swallowing hard, she said shakily: "One minute, he's standing there, talking to us, giving us what was probably the best closing argument of his life, when he just..."

"Was it a stroke, you think? Heart attack?"

She shrugged. "He grabbed his stomach... And then started to complain about pain in his legs and feet..."

Dean, seeing her eyes water further, nudged the box of Kleenex on her desk closer towards her.

"And then he just... fell over!"

"He looked like a real athletic guy... You would think it wouldn't be health problems." He was fishing and, given her state, he knew she wouldn't catch on to it.

"I don't know," she admitted. "But you're right. I wish I did know... The police, they won't tell me anything."

Dean nodded slowly. "If you ever want to talk, to remember Mr. Martin..." He wrote his cell phone number down on a post-it pad he found on her desk. "I'm Dean."

She smiled, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. "Collette."

He winked at her. "Hang in there. It'll all be okay."

"Thank you," she said, looking up at him.

He offered a slight smile, and then headed down the corridor. He overheard some water-cooler chat, but nothing that really jumped out. There was no smoking gun, no solid lead. Not at his first stop of the day.

Checking his watch as he headed down the sidewalk, he couldn't imagine the court clerk's office closing before five PM. The morgue might be easier to tackle later that night, after they closed up shop for the day. Rational, normal people tended to avoid scary places like that at night.

He found his way to the clerk's office, and smiled at one of the assistant clerks. She seemed to be in her mid thirties. A soccer mom, he bet. She, too, had a plaque on her desk: Janet Meraux. "Hi. I'm Dean; I work for Griffin and Martin..."

Mrs. Meraux gave Dean a over once, and not in a way that made him smile. She took in the torn blue jeans, the gray tee shirt with a green work shirt over it, along with his peculiar necklace. It wasn't exactly normal attire for the employees of Griffin and Martin, she knew. "Sure you do."

"I do. I just started today. Everyone is walking around in kind of a fog... They're all in shock. Nobody over there figured they could even come up here today, to ask for a copy of Mr. Martin's divorce papers." The real question he had there was: does Mr. Martin have divorce documents? The clerk's initial reaction was to frown, and Dean wasn't sure he liked that.

"Mr. Martin didn't have a copy of his own divorce decree?"

"His assistant, Corrine? No… Collette! She said she couldn't find it. She's really torn up about the whole thing. She said she was there when it happened."

The clerk muttered something under her breath Dean couldn't quite make out, and he decided it best not to press. "I can get you a copy," she said. "It'll be five dollars."

"For the copy?" Dean asked, frowning.

She nodded.

"They didn't tell me that part... Can I get the copy, and then come back with the money?"

She shook her head. "That's not our policy."

"I swear I'll bring it back, but they need that document now, something about the will, lines of inheritance... and I don't have any money on me."

She sighed heavily.

"Please, Ms. Meraux..."

She shook her head.

"What if I sweetened the deal... Made it ten bucks?"

"You're trying to bribe me with five dollars?"

'Kinda,' he thought. He shrugged slightly. "Not really?"

She sighed. "It's your first day; I'll cut you some slack."

He grinned. "You are wonderful." He had far more important things to do with his five dollars, like buying dinner. A little dinner and a little visit to the morgue. Who wouldn't enjoy that in the darkness of night?

A few minutes later, he was holding a hot stack of papers, fresh from the copier. He smiled one last time at the clerk, before heading out and back to his car. As he slid behind the wheel, he skimmed the documents. Attached, as "Exhibit A," was the prenuptial agreement, which kept the former Mrs. Martin from his extensive estate, save $10,000 for the first two years after the divorce. A sorry little severance package, hardly worth mentioning to an attorney who, he guessed, was worth at least a hundred times more than that. With the divorce having become final five years ago, that paltry alimony was long since gone. Maybe the former missus still held a grudge for her ex's wealth.

Full custody of then-thirteen-year-old Patricia went to her father, with minimal, if any, visitation rights going to mom Karen. Dean guessed the littlest Martin knew which side of her bread was buttered. Living in luxury with Dad, or trying to make ends meet with Mom? Didn't sound like a tough question for a girl who had grown up in the upper class her whole life.

He tossed the pages into the passenger seat, and started the car. Since it was still early, with the sun shining down, he opted for a trip to the nearest public library. So far, he was coming up with a great big goose egg. Maybe his father had made a mistake in sending him there. Maybe there wasn't anything there after all.

The library was nearly dead on a Thursday afternoon. One young woman sat at one of the computer terminals. As he walked past her, he noticed she was typing an e-mail to a friend as well as her intoxicating perfume. An older man was hunting and pecking at what looked to be a word processing program. Nothing too interesting to Dean, who had settled in at the back terminal and pulled up the library's online historical records.

He made the mistake of starting out entirely too broadly. "Mysterious death" and "middle age, healthy male" turned up hundreds of hits. The first few were products of drug overdoses, things that were later deemed to be suicides. Some were genuinely unknown cases. Autopsies had revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Investigations into their deaths were closed for lack of evidence.

Hopping out of the historical records, he punched what only made sense, given his location, into an informational occult search engine. "Voodoo," he muttered, hitting the enter key.

He hoped that wasn't what he was chasing. Some weird old lady with a chicken bone around her neck... Maybe if he broke her crystal ball, they'd be safe.

Although, as the search engine provided various hits, he started thinking about what Collette had said, about having pains in his stomach and legs. Normally heart attacks, strokes dealt with chest or arm pains. Sighing slightly, he clicked on information about voodoo dolls. He just wasn't sure pricking a Cabbage Patch doll with a safety pin would do much damage.

At any rate, he printed off a few pages of things that might help, and decided to scope out the morgue, get a feel for the place, and check for back exits if he needed. Police tended to frown upon people being in places they weren't supposed to be. The truth of the situation was that Dean _was_ supposed to be there--it was his job, of course--but he didn't count on New Orleans' finest agreeing with him.

He noticed several things as he casually circled the block. There was a back door, which emptied into a fenced-in courtyard. Not his ideal escape. There were several windows he might be able to break out of, but they were all somewhat high off the ground. Jumping down wouldn't be too big of a problem. The jumping up to reach them might. As he idled at a stoplight near the front door, he saw a young woman, maybe his age, head for the door. She had soft dark hair, wore blue jeans and a maroon fitted tee shirt, with a backpack slung over a shoulder and headphones in her ears. 'Kids today and their iPods,' he thought, figuring she might have been the daughter of the coroner or something.

When the light changed, he pulled through the intersection and turned, so that he could see the entrance of the morgue in his rear-view mirror. The young woman smiled at several people who were leaving. One stopped to talk to her for a moment before she waved at him and entered. Dean continued down the road, stopping when he found a pizza place.

Parking the Impala, he headed inside, ordering a large supreme pizza. His wait time was about twenty minutes. "Do you have a phone book I could borrow? Just gotta look up a number..."

The teenager behind the counter regarded him for a moment then shrugged. "Sure, dude," he said, pulling the thick book out from a drawer.

"Thanks, man," he said, flipping through it. Locating the morgue's number, he punched it into his cell phone. He set the book back on the counter before heading outside to place the call. Leaning against the brick exterior, he listened to the rings.

"New Orleans City Morgue."

It was a woman's voice, and Dean's thoughts landed on the girl he'd seen walk in. "Wh... Who'd you say I called?"

"New Orleans City Morgue," she repeated, a little slower.

"Nuh-uh, no way! Rach, is that you? Did Jim-bo put you up to that?" he asked, a slight smile forming on his face.

"There is no Rachel or Jim here," she responded. "Now, is there something I can do for you?"

Under normal circumstances, Dean enjoyed loaded questions. But, alas, he was working and didn't have the time. "I really called the morgue? Dude, I totally thought it was Jim-bo's number."

"It's really the morgue," she confirmed, sounding a little annoyed.

"Wow... with dead people?"

"Sir, unless you have a substantive question about the work we do here, I will be hanging up this phone now."

"It's getting kind of late. You guys open all night?"

"People don't just die in the daylight. Thank you for calling," she said, and the line went dead.

Dean frowned. They were still open. Maybe with the night crew, though, it wouldn't be so bad. Besides, he had another idea up his sleeve. Sliding his cell phone into his pocket, he headed into the pizza place again.

He didn't have to wait too much longer for his order, and he ate most of it while leaning against the trunk of the Impala, thinking about what all the trunk held: silver bullets, crosses, wooden stakes, lighter fluid, guns, among other tools of his trade. He wasn't entirely sure what could combat voodoo, especially what kinds of things he had. Salt circles work for most things. Maybe he could call his Dad, see what he thought. Maybe there was some sort of universal counter curse he knew about.

Finishing another piece of pizza, he pulled out his cell phone, and dialed his dad's number. He frowned slightly when he received John's voice mail. "Dad, it's me. I'm down here in New Orleans and, uh... still investigating, but I wanted to know if you had any information, knew anything about voodoo. Anyway, I'm going to be sneaking into somewhere shortly, so I'll probably have the phone off, but you can still leave me a message. Thanks, Dad," he said, hanging up.

There were only two slices of pizza left. Good enough, he figured. Rather than driving back to the morgue, he walked, carrying the pizza box. He let himself in through the glass door, and found his way to the front desk, where the dark haired girl he'd seen earlier sat. He smiled easily.

"Hey there. Somebody order a pizza?"

She looked up at him, fixing her dark green eyes on his face and blinked with her long lashes. "Don't think so."

"Are you sure? Somebody called it in not that long ago, told me City Morgue."

"I assure you, nobody called in a pizza order."

"You sure you don't want to ask around?" He noticed the entry was small, and all three doors leading further into the building were all marked "Authorized Personnel Only." He wasn't sure if anyone else was working, but if she went to check, he might be able to slip into the back, check out the body, and leave before she returned. "I'd hate to take away somebody's dinner, y'know. I'll wait here while you ask."

"Look, pal--" she began, standing slowly.

She was a little on the short side, pretty cute, really, with soft curves, nice lips, Dean decided

"--No one here ordered pizza, and I can guarantee you that 'Jim-bo' and 'Rach' aren't here either."

Dean's confident façade almost faltered. Almost. "Wh... What are you talking about?"

"You were the asshole that called here a little while ago."

"Look, lady, I deliver pizzas. I've been delivering for a couple hours now, on the clock."

"You aren't wearing the uniform for the pizza place down the street there," she said, nodding in its direction.

"It messes with my style. They get that."

"The box isn't in one of those thermal bags to keep the pizza warm."

Dean was starting to find her annoying. "It's in my car."

"Which is where, exactly?"

"Outside."

"Great. Go outside, get in it, and don't come back here again or else I will call the police."

"I really don't think that's necessary. I'm just trying to deliver a pizza--"

"The hell you are, pal. Buzz off," she said, growing agitated. "Right now."

Dean lowered the pizza box, easing it onto her desk. "All right, all right. I'll come clean, okay?"

She folded her arms over her chest.

"It's just that I've seen you around and, uh... Well, I think you're beautiful." He could sense he was losing her interest, fast. "And you certainly have an interesting job. I thought I'd just... try to be clever, to meet you."

"So, you prank called me and tried to deliver a pizza?"

"Well, they're not the normal pick up lines, now are they?" he asked, smiling at her. He watched, delighted, as a hint of a smile dawned on her face. "I'm Dean." He held his hand out to her.

Slowly, she uncrossed her arms, placing her hand in his. "Darcy."

"Darcy... Wow..." Dean was ages past where butterflies took to his stomach when he met girls. But there was something about her touch that was different. He tried to ignore it. "That's a gorgeous name. It fits you."

"Y'know, lying doesn't really become you," she said, lowering her hand. "It isn't becoming for anyone."

He chose not to respond to that. "I'm surprised. You don't have one of those thick New Orleans drawls..."

"I don't think either one of us are from here originally... are we?" she asked knowingly.

"I'm from Kansas."

"Well, Toto, you're certainly not there anymore."

He chuckled slightly. "No, I'm definitely not."

"So, what do you want, Dean?" She crossed her arms again, looking at him. "'Cause I know for sure it isn't me." It was like she could see right through him.

* * *

The Road Ahead...

"You develop a real sense of macabre working here."

"Defensive mechanism, right?"

She nodded. "What do you do? To protect yourself from what you do?"

He looked at her honestly. "Kill the hell out of unholy sons of bitches."


	2. Chapter 2

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Then...

Dean makes a solo trip to New Orleans to investigate the mysterious death of a prominent attorney, Alain Martin. With little to go on, he ventures to the morgue to try to take a look at the body, but can't get past Darcy, the girl at the front desk, who seems to know exactly what Dean is after.

Now...

* * *

The gauntlet had been thrown. Dean was facing off with someone demanding the truth, someone who seemed to see through his lies, his deception. The silence that lingered after her final question, wanting to know what it was he truly wanted, was tense.

Dean knew he didn't have much time to try to fudge an answer. And if he wasn't careful, it would look obviously like he was winging it. There was always the truth, but that would probably find his ass in a holding cell before the hour would be out. Flirting just wasn't working--normally it did! He was running out of options. He could hit her, knock her out, and drag her behind the desk. Maybe no one would come looking for her for a while, at least long enough for him to take a look at the corpse and get out.

"Don't you dare," she said warningly.

He looked at her. "What? I haven't done anything..."

"Just tell me the truth, huh?"

"Look, Darcy, I'm just a guy here, who's trying--and failing--in his attempts to impress a pretty girl."

"Sure you are. Get to the point!"

"I'm a private investigator, all right?" It was mostly the truth. "I'm looking into the Martin murder."

"Murder?"

"Well, the man is certainly dead. You could confirm that for me, I'm sure."

"Why the elaborate crap?"

"Would you let a PI in to see the body?"

"No. And I sure as hell wouldn't let some guy I just met who wanted a date either."

"So, I'm striking out _really_ badly today."

"'Striking out.' Interesting choice of words." She stared hard at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"Were you really going to hit me?"

"Hit you?" he asked, frowning, playing dumb. In reality, his mind was reeling. What the hell? He hadn't even _muttered_ that plan. He hadn't clenched a fist; he hadn't raised his arm to indicate he might hit her. Besides, he'd never _really_ hit a girl before. That was one thing that John Winchester completely drew the line at, and heaven forbid Dean disobey his father.

She bit her lower lip and a look of--was it guilt? panic?--crossed her face.

There was no way, no natural way, she could've possibly known about what he'd been about to do. "Wait..." He looked at her, as all the pieces suddenly fell into place. "You're telepathic."

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

"You are!"

She neither confirmed nor denied it, at least not outright. "And you're not really a private investigator. What are you doing here?"

"You tell me!" Dean said, trying to clear his mind of all thoughts, to make her job harder.

She didn't, necessarily, take the bait. "What makes you think Martin was murdered?"

"What makes you think he wasn't, Doc?"

She shook her head. "I'm not a doctor, not a coroner."

"What are you, then?"

"I keep track of the paperwork, admissions, releases. The gatekeeper, if you will. And you are not getting through to the freezer."

"Okay, okay..." He looked at her, holding her gaze while thinking about the truth. About what he thought killed Martin: voodoo.

She narrowed her eyes slightly then shook her head. "You have to be kidding," she muttered.

"You have to be reading my mind. I think we both dabble a little in the otherwise unthinkable. We should be on the same team, you and me."

"I could lose my job if I join your team."

"What's so great about working with a bunch of stiffs anyway?"

She merely looked at him.

He blinked, figuring it out. "Oh." 'Dead people don't think.'

"Bingo."

"Darcy, other people may be in danger from whatever it was that killed Perry Mason in there. While I'm sure you don't mind the extra paperwork, I think other people might. If I could just get in, take a peek at the body, see what reports have been written so far, that would really, really help me out."

"But, voodoo? Some of the city's workers thrive by palmistry, reading tarot cards... But, c'mon. It's not real."

"Maybe in the circles you run, but I think there's something more going on here than meets the eye."

Darcy sighed heavily.

"Look, the sooner you let me in there, the sooner I get out of your hair, but until then? I'm not leaving."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine."

He held back a smile as she led him down the corridor and into the cold storage.

"Preliminary reports showed there was no obvious trauma to the victim. Nothing out of the ordinary which made it, well, out of the ordinary," she said, stopping at a box to hand him a pair of latex gloves. "No fingerprints, Magnum."

A telepath and pop culture reference-dropper? He was in love. "Gotcha," he said, pulling them clumsily on. She sighed, which made him grin: he was getting to her.

"The police report had witness statements, who claim he complained of pains in his stomach, then legs and feet. All abdominal organs seemed normal. Toxicology reports from blood samples taken from the various organs have all come back normal. It doesn't make much sense."

"No ulcers or anything for this dude?" he asked, watching as Darcy pulled down the thin sheet covering Alain Martin.

"Nothing. Everything was in perfect working condition when he just keeled over."

"Gee, Scully, I think the answer must be something paranormal..." Dean said, crossing towards the dead guy. Most times, when he saw dead people, it was the result of a trauma: gunshot wounds, mauled, cut to pieces. Mr. Martin looked like he was just sleeping, albeit on a terribly uncomfortable bed. He gently poked at the man's stomach. "So, do you see pictures, like the future, the past, or...?"

She shook her head. "Just words. Lots and lots of words, lots of noise."

"Well, that's gotta suck."

"You have no idea," she said flatly, though she offered him a slight smile.

In all seriousness, he turned towards her. "Do animals think?"

She sighed. "Dean..."

"Just asking." He looked back at the dead guy, at the sewn incision on his chest, where the coroner had played Operation. "Theoretically, Doc, say someone has their very own Attorney Voodoo Doll, and they prick the prick in the stomach. Would it leave a mark?"

"I would imagine there would be a blood trail or something, but, again, that's just speculation on my part."

"I asked theoretically," he told her.

"Are you always this talkative?"

"I try not to think," he admitted.

"Is that a special pick up line just for telepaths?"

"Could be," he admitted, leaning in closer to Martin's legs, looking for pinpricks. He frowned slightly. "What about other means of torturing your voodoo doll? Matches, right? Fire? Could explain the feet and leg pains, lighting up Lawyer Ken's toes."

"I'm not an expert on the subject. I really don't know."

"You know anybody who is?"

"Before I dropped out of LSU, there was a professor there, of folklore, urban legends, the like. He might know something."

"What's his name?"

"Oliver Yates."

"You know this guy at all?"

"A little."

Good enough for him. "What time do you get off?"

"Midnight."

"Then you probably crash, right, get some sleep?"

"More or less."

He nodded. "I gotta find a place to hole up for the night, then. Maybe during the daylight hours, we can go see that professor."

Darcy glanced back. There was an empty slab.

Dean started shaking his head. "I'm not even a telepath and I know exactly what you're thinking. The answer to that is not only no, but 'oh, _hell_ no.'"

"Just a thought," she said, offering, albeit briefly, a sweet smile that held traces of mischief.

That was intriguing, her somewhat sexy, playful smile, Dean thought, before wondering instantly if she 'read' that. Unfortunately, her expression offered him no hint.

"If you need a place to stay, we have a break room. There's a coffee pot, vending machine, table, some uncomfortable chairs, but there's also a couch. One that's not bad for sleeping on."

"Sleeping in the morgue?" he asked, wrinkling up his nose.

"Oh, sure, lots do. Sleep like the dead, too," she deadpanned.

"You have a very dark sense of humor, of looking at things."

"You develop a real sense of macabre working here."

"Defensive mechanism, right?"

She nodded. "What do you do? To protect yourself from what you do?"

He looked at her honestly. "Kill the hell out of unholy sons of bitches."

"A modern-day crusader?"

He shrugged. "Something like that."

"Sounds interesting."

"Well, the job has its perks," he said.

She looked at him knowingly. "But drawbacks, too..."

He rubbed his forehead, his thoughts landing on the loneliness that plagued him, on his estranged brother Sam. His job just wasn't conducive to long-term relationships. His crisscrossing the continental US made that rather hard. Not many long-distance romantic relationships ever worked, and, well, being the significant other of a ghost hunter was worse than being a military wife. Things attacked ghost hunters. People attacked the US armed forces. He lived in seedy hotels; they lived on well-kept bases.

"When I get off, you can come home with me. It's another couch, but... It's not a hotel."

He looked over at her, nodding. "Thank you."

She smiled softly. "C'mon. Break room is this way."

Dean removed his gloves, tossing them in a nearby trashcan, before following her out of the morgue's exam room. "I guess this makes us partners."

She glanced back at him, shrugging slightly. "I guess it does."

"I don't normally work with chicks. This'll be a brand new experience."

"I don't normally work with professional paranormal investigators. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience." When they reached their destination, she leaned against the open door jamb. "So, the break room..." It was a dimly lit room, with everything she'd described. Industrial coffee pot, round table, folding chairs, vending machines with a few snacks, and a lumpy looking couch.

"And that's comfortable?" he asked, looking disbelievingly at her.

"You would be surprised," she said, looking back at him, again with that playful little smile.

He shook his head slightly, a grin forming on his own lips. "The couch at your place... You swear its better?"

"Mmm... That's a good question."

He narrowed his eyes at her slightly. "I can't read your mind, y'know."

"In another couple hours, we'll be heading home. You can judge for yourself."

"Wait, wait… We? We're already a 'we?'"

"You did say we were partners."

He thought about that for a moment. "I guess I did, didn't I?"

"So, you made us a we, and I haven't even known you _that_ long."

"I move pretty fast."

"It would appear that way," she said. "Make yourself at home."

"I'd rather do that in your apartment, truth be told."

She smiled slightly, looking up at him. "Tell me something... Do people really buy your schemes?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes. Sometimes, the people I talk to have convinced themselves that they were seeing things, that their eyes were playing tricks on them. If it helps them sleep at night, that's fine. But I still need to know it. So, I'll tell them anything I can in order to figure it out."

She nodded, tucking her dark hair behind her ear.

"So, where are you from, Darcy?"

"You want to know my story?"

"Yeah." He genuinely did want to know.

"Unfortunately, that story is a very long one. One I probably shouldn't get into just yet."

* * *

She crept through the dank woods, carrying only a small flashlight. In the darkness, she knew she was vulnerable, being watched. She tried not to think about the mysterious sounds surrounding her. She tried not to jump at the ones that scared her, the ones that she didn't recognize. In fact, that particular area seemed to be filled with unearthly, unholy sounds of all kinds. The howling wind that whipped through the trees sounded more like the screams of tortured souls.

She crept quietly along, trying to focus on her steps instead; that was the only way she knew how to navigate. Where she needed to go was exactly six hundred steps due north from where she entered the bayou. From there, she turned to the east for four hundred and thirty seven more. Her last turn was to the northeast, for one hundred and twelve. And then, she would be there, at the hidden cabin.

She pulled her sweater coat around her tighter as she maneuvered along, sloshing through puddles, feeling the vines and brush pull at her legs, poking her through her thick jeans.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she started counting aloud: "Eighty-two... eighty-three."

Maybe, she could convince herself it was all a bad dream. Once she reached the hidden cabin, everything would be right again, she knew. She wasn't far now either, less than twenty paces.

The closer she got, however, the louder the sounds became. She had experienced this every other time she had made this journey, but each time, it was something that was nearly unbearable. It was something she had to overcome. The fear threatened to consume her, to petrify her. But, being glued to the spot in the darkened wood, away from any civilization whatsoever, was a frightening thought in and of itself. What if something got her? No one would ever find her. The bayou would simply swallow her whole. The police might form a few search parties, but they'd never venture down to the right spot, and certainly not until Mother Nature had several days' head start.

She could die there, and no one would ever find her. Her soul would never be put to rest. She would probably become one of those howling winds, keeping most visitors from the depths of the darkness there. She quickened her steps, not wanting to think about the eternity that might consume her.

"One-oh-eight, one-oh-nine, one-ten, one eleven..." As she took her last step, she looked up, her dim spotlight shining on something that could be generously described as a shack.

The lean-to leaned against an old, thick tree trunk. The roof was metal; the walls, wooden planks. The small front porch had a broken railing. The front door was fabric, billowing in the breeze.

Both dread and comfort overtook her instantly. Comfort that she was now safe at the hidden cabin, but dread, because she was fairly certain the one who resided within the thrown-together home controlled the rest of the bayou.

"I'm here," she announced, in as strong a voice as she could muster. Her voice held a slight New Orleans brogue.

The female voice that answered her, however, had a thick Cajun accent. "Come in, chil'. Come in..."

Swallowing hard, she made her way to the doorway, pulling back the curtain. She knew there was no electricity out there, but the room within was bright, and not lit by any discernible candles. In fact, she wasn't sure of the source at all. She had tried to figure it out the last time she had been there, but had been too scared to look too closely at anything.

The air was thick with incense. The smell was so intense it was almost dizzying. She figured that combated what she was sure would've been an otherwise horrific smell, one of decaying flesh or animal sacrifices. Pelts of furry creatures hung along the back wall, along with a shelf filled with mason jars. She'd never been so curious as to try to figure out what was in them, afraid she would find eyeballs or bat wings or other disgusting ingredients for dastardly potions and poultices.

As she finally stepped inside, she saw her, seated at the long table. A glass goblet sat before her, along with a selection of old, hand-hewn tools--knives, spoons, scrapers, and the like. The woman wore a torn, dirty dress that might've been popular a century ago. Her dark hair was tangled and matted, streaked with gray. Her skin was ashen, and her eyes seemed to be sunken, missing. Her teeth were rotted. Long, grimy fingernails topped bony, thin fingers.

"What dija bring me dis evenin'?"

"Another picture," she answered, pulling a framed photograph from her pocket. She took one last look at it, at herself, smiling, next to the other person before she handed it over.

The woman tilted her head, appearing to examine it with her missing eyes. "Chil', again?"

"Please," she said. "This is... this is what needs to be done."

"An' you're certain you can live wit' da consequences?"

She nodded earnestly.

The woman then smashed the frame on the table, shattering it. Her fingers deftly pulled the photograph from the glass shards and broken wood pieces. She carefully tore the photograph in half. "More of you belongs to me now, chil'," she said, placing one half of the photograph in her glass goblet.

"I know," she managed quietly.

"Give me your hand," she said, holding her bony hand out to the girl.

Hesitantly, she placed her hand within it. She was yanked closer to the table, watching as the strange woman picked up the bone knife on the table. "Wh... Wait, what are you..." The first time she had come, the old woman had only pricked her finger, adding a few drops of her blood to the goblet. The time before, her palm had been cut. Before she had time to finish her question, she was screaming out in pain, as the knife slashed her wrist. Her blood flowed into the goblet freely. She started to feel light headed. "Doing...?" she managed. "Stop... Don't..." She was certain she heard... chanting? It sounded like hundreds of voices. The language was one she didn't recognize. She had no idea what they were saying, and it scared her.

The older woman smiled, showing off her yellowed, rotting teeth. "Easy, chil'. Easy."

* * *

The Road Ahead...

In the coming years, he'd had trouble, trying to locate what he learned had been a demon. A demon itself had done that to his family. But now, while trying to focus on the Woman in White who seemed to be killing dozens of young men, he could think only of his two young men, his Dean and his Sammy.

He'd vowed to avenge their mother's death. And he hadn't done it yet.


	3. Chapter 3

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Then...

Dean learns that Darcy, at the morgue, is more than what she seems. In fact, she's pretty supernatural herself, having telepathic abilities. They make a deal to help each other. Meanwhile, in the depths of a deep dark bayou, a woman makes a deal with deadly consequences.

Now...

* * *

Shortly before midnight, Darcy let herself into the break room, where Dean had been resting on the couch. He was somewhat handsome, she had to admit. He definitely had that bad-boy quality, somewhat James Dean-esque. Normally, that wasn't her type, but something about him was intriguing, attractive even. Maybe it was the whole idea of what he did, hunting what went bump in the night.

Maybe she was drawn to his sense of isolation because she felt that way often herself. Only one other person had understood her, her ability, and that person was long since gone. Ultimately, she knew that Dean was not the settling down, staying around type. She was fairly certain that, once he had solved this little mystery, he would vanish from her life just as quickly and as abruptly as he had entered it.

"Dean..."

She couldn't help but notice that he looked adorable while he slept, though he had yet to budge.

Reaching out, she gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Dean, it's time to wake up..."

He stirred slowly, opening one eye, followed by the other. "Darcy...?"

"The next guy'll be here shortly. You should go on out of here, get your car, and I'll meet you there. Where are you parked?"

"Uh, down the street," he said, slowly sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "A '67 Impala. Hard to miss," he told her.

She smiled. "All right. I'll be right there."

He nodded, getting to his feet. "I really slept at a morgue..."

"See, it's not so bad," she said, guiding him out of the room.

"Well, it's certainly a first," he told her. He glanced at her, as they walked to the lobby. He caught a whiff of something. Maybe her perfume, or her shampoo... It didn't really matter. Whatever it was, it smelled wonderful, warm, and soft, like... comfort. Like home. He again wondered what, exactly, she was capable of reading off of him, just how privy she was to his innermost thoughts and feelings. "If you want, just give me directions and I can meet you at your apartment."

"You aren't going to give me a ride?"

He blinked. "You don't have a car?"

She shook her head.

"How can you live without a car?"

"Out of necessity," she said. "But, again, long story, and you should get out of here. I'll tell you on the ride home."

"Good enough, I guess."

She watched as he exited the building, and she eased behind the front desk once more. It had been a quiet night, with no late-night runs by police officers. No requests for the coroner on call to head out to some shady location to check out one of the newly departed.

In order to allow Dean unimpeded dreams, she'd worked all night with her iPod at full blast, focusing on the music. Music seemed to be the only thing to drown out the voices in her head. She listened on the walk to work, when she would try to get sleep at night. It helped save her sanity. Being party to the city's secrets was difficult. She didn't want to know about the number of adulterous women. About the gay guys shoved deep within their own closets. About the white collar criminals in the corner offices embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

She'd heard someone think about a murder once, in another city, in what seemed like another lifetime. She had gone to the local police with her information. They said they didn't have the time for parlor-trick psychics. Last she had heard, before she moved, the murder was still unsolved. The murderer still walked the streets with his murderous thoughts.

Without being John Edward, she simply wasn't capable of helping anyone.

Lost in her own thoughts, she looked up when another voice entered her mind. One thinking about the sexy car he'd seen on the way in. A real beauty, back when muscle cars were really muscle cars.

Frank, she realized, standing up and sliding a jacket on before shouldering her bag.

"Graveyard shift, reporting in," announced the same voice she had just heard in her own head as an older, balding guy walked in.

"Evening," Darcy said. "It's been quiet tonight. Hopefully it'll stay that way."

"Yeah, right," he chuckled. "You have a good night."

"Thanks, Frank. You, too," she said before making her own way out of the morgue, and towards the pizza place.

Down the block, she saw the sleek-looking black car Frank must've been thinking about. More importantly, she saw Dean leaning against the trunk. She smiled slightly, making her way towards him.

"Your chariot," he told her.

"Nice car. My coworker likes it, too."

"Well, your coworker has good taste." She smiled, moving towards the passenger seat, as Dean headed for the driver's side. "Next stop, your place. Where is it?"

"Not too far," she admitted as she climbed in. "About two miles."

"You walk two miles a day to work and two miles back at midnight?"

"Sometimes I take the bus, or a taxi."

"Crazy," he said, shaking his head as he started the car.

"And believing in and hunting ghosts isn't just a little on the peculiar side?" she asked, glancing over at him.

He looked over at her. "Yeah, but any girl walking at home at midnight is crazy, especially in New Orleans, which doesn't have the safest crime record ever." That said, he turned his attention to the road again, and pulled out into the late-night traffic.

"It might be pretty crazy that I'm going to take a total stranger home for the evening, too," she pointed out.

Dean was silent for a moment. "I'm not a _total_ stranger."

"Did we or did we not meet about a couple hours ago? Have you or have you not been asleep most of the time after that...?"

"All right, so we're both certifiable," Dean acknowledged before quickly changing topics. "Now, you were going to tell me why you don't drive..."

"It isn't exactly the safest of driving conditions, to be going down the road and then, all the sudden, hear another voice in there, y'know, making a grocery list, or thinking about stuff that happened at work that day, or... whatever. Especially if there are lots of people around, then there are lots of voices. Lots more distractions than your average everyday driver. Makes me somewhat of a hazard on the roads. I stick to walking."

"With your music."

"Y'know that saying, about trying to drown your sorrows?"

"That they know how to swim?" he asked, glancing over at her.

She nodded. "Mine swim, but they can't compete with Bonnie Tyler at full blast."

"Bonnie Tyler, huh? See, I'm more of a Led Zeppelin guy..."

"Somehow I got that," she said, smiling a little.

"You pulled it out of my head."

"I try not to be invasive," she admitted. "But, no, I just figured you for a hard-rock kind of guy. The way you dress, the way you look... Just, summed you up like most normal people do."

"Yeah?"

She nodded.

"Normal people are entirely overrated."

"You think so?"

"If you were normal, we wouldn't be here right now. 'Cause I'd have gone into that morgue, figured out what I needed to find out, which, turned out to be nothing much, and then I would've gone and found some crappy hotel so I could think about what to do next. Instead... I'm going to crash on your couch and we're going to talk to some professor in the morning."

"If you were normal, you wouldn't have even come to the morgue."

"Exactly," he told her, glancing over at her. Her features looked soft in the dim light. Attractive. "You didn't just read my mind then, did you?"

"You want the truth?" she asked, looking over at him.

"Yeah," he said slowly.

She shrugged a little. "It's hard not to."

"Does it make you uncomfortable?"

She smiled. "That you think I'm pretty? No. Does it make you uncomfortable?" she challenged.

"Nah," Dean said, shaking his head. "Must've been easy for you to ask somebody out in school, during the otherwise awkward teenage years. You could figure out beforehand if he actually liked you."

"It was still a nerve-wracking process," she admitted. "Turn left up here," she said.

Dean drove as he was told.

"My building is up there at the corner."

"So, where are you from anyway? Because you're not from New Orleans."

"I was born and raised in Virginia. After high school, I started moving around. I've been trying to find somewhere to call home ever since."

"Have you found it yet?"

She shook her head slowly. "Not yet. But New Orleans isn't bad for right now."

"Why not Virginia? Why isn't it home?" he asked, pulling into a parallel parking spot in front of her apartment building.

"My parents didn't exactly understand when I told them what I could do. Even though I read their minds, even though I told them what they were thinking, they decided I was crazy or something. Something that didn't need to be with them anymore."

He glanced over at her. "You aren't a 'thing.'"

Slowly, she looked up at him, with her dark green eyes. "You never know," she said. "I might be."

He shook his head confidently. "Not possible."

She smiled a little then climbed out, finding her apartment key. "C'mon."

Dean popped the trunk, pulling a duffel bag out. He conscientiously thought about other things, anything other than the fact the Impala's trunk had a false bottom. He thought about AC/DC lyrics as he slammed the trunk before he followed her up into her building, to her apartment on the fourth floor.

"Home, sweet home," she said, welcoming him inside.

The apartment wasn't very large, but Dean felt at ease. She did have what looked like a comfortable cream-colored couch, complete with plush pillows in coordinating accent colors and a matching throw. The coffee table was actually an ottoman, one that matched her couch. Her walls held framed vintage record covers, some bands he recognized and some he didn't. She didn't have glaring overhead lighting, but instead, soft lamps throughout the room.

"Make yourself at home. Kitchen is through that door," she said, pointing across the room. "There's only one bathroom, and it's off the bedroom, which is this way," she said, moving towards it. "I'll be right back."

"Sure," he said, taking another look around her living room. She had a turntable. He hadn't seen one of those in ages. She had crate after crate of vinyl albums. Beside them, she had a few bookshelves. He figured her for a poetry girl, or maybe someone who read Shakespeare in her free time. Instead, upon closer inspection, he saw that her bookshelves didn't have a single paperback or hard-cover text. They were filled instead with CDs: Classical music to swing, pop and rock, orchestral pieces, soundtracks to musicals, even country and folk. She had everything.

He smiled a little, when he pulled out a CD by a familiar group.

Darcy emerged from her bedroom in a pair of black yoga pants and a soft, well-washed tee shirt that hugged her curves, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. "Found something you like?"

"Hell yeah," he said, proudly holding up a Metallica CD.

"CD player's over here," she said, tapping an entertainment cabinet on her way to the kitchen.

"I figured you weren't a Metallica chick."

"I'll listen to anything," she said, leaving the kitchen door open as she headed for the fridge. "But, that one, they covered a traditional Celtic song."

"You like the Irish or something?" he asked.

"My dad's family, way, way back, is from Ireland," she said, pulling out a bottle of water.

"I have no idea what my family is, technically. Never had the time to look it up," he admitted.

"Mmm. Dad told me my name was Celtic. Y'know what it means?"

Dean shrugged. "Mind reader?"

She shook her head. "'Descendant of dark one.' They named me that, I was told, anyway, because I had dark hair when I was born. When they told me not to come home anymore, they told me my name fit me more than they had ever realized."

Dean was fairly certain he heard her voice break ever so slightly, and he could see a distant look in her eyes, as though she were reliving the moment. Sliding the CD back into its spot on the bookshelf, he shook his head. "Believe me, Darcy. I've seen a lot of evil in my time. You know it when you see it, you see it so much. You're not evil."

She offered a faint smile, deciding to move on rather than dwell. "So, I emailed Dr. Yates at work, told him we'll be by to see him in the morning," she said.

"Darcy..."

She looked at him.

He merely looked back at her, holding her gaze. He figured, maybe, this would be more convincing coming from his thoughts, rather than his lips. 'You aren't evil. When people come across things they don't know, it's almost always the same. Because they didn't understand you, they didn't know how to respond to you. So, they forced you out, so they don't have to try to figure it out. You are different, but that doesn't make you horrible. Your parents, they were the horrible ones, when they learned the truth.'

He watched as her eyes filled with tears. She couldn't pull her gaze from him, not until he blinked, giving her the opportunity to look at the floor. "I haven't been around someone who understands in... in a long time," she said quietly.

"It's okay," he told her, reaching out, and cupping her face in his hand. His thumb grazed her skin gently.

"Dean," she whispered. She didn't want to move into his arms. Moving into his arms could be very bad, because when it came time for him to leave, she might not want him to. When he had to go, she might have a very hard time coming to terms with the idea that the only other person on the planet who understood was gone. Again.

But, by the same token, there was someone there, in front of her, who understood what it was like to be truly and utterly one of a kind. To be extraordinary, in a supernatural way.

Setting her water down, she eased against him, wrapping her arms around him, resting her head on his chest.

Dean's arms had no other place to go but around her. He noticed how she was the perfect height, how she seemed to be made exactly for that spot against him, in the protective safety of his arms. He rested his cheek against her hair, noting again that yes, her shampoo, whatever it was, smelled divine.

His eyes closed as he just held her close. There were days he wished he could read minds. It would make his job one hell of a lot easier. There were days he wished it was more than just he and his dad hunting. He wished that Sammy was back with them. He wished that more people understood what the Winchesters were doing, what they had to do, in order to protect the rest of the country.

But, he didn't count on that ever happening. Slowly, he raised his head. "You, um... You must be pretty tired after a long day. Plus, we should get up early, see that professor..."

She nodded, pulling back from him. "If you get hungry or anything, y'know, just... help yourself, okay? There's a TV and everything..."

"Thanks," he told her, noticing she had yet to look up at him.

"Good night," she said, grabbing her water again and heading for her bedroom, pulling the door closed ever so slightly.

Dean scratched his head. This had to be a first for him. Staying the night at a girl's house and not... He quickly stopped that though because she probably still had her telepathic radar on, and, well, that could give her a bad impression.

Exhaling, he flopped down on the couch. The television remote sat on the ottoman. He thought about turning it on, but the thought of flipping past infomercials and ads for singles lines wasn't really his idea of a great evening.

Removing his boots, he stretched out, pulling the throw over him. Tomorrow, he'd really get this case moving.

* * *

It was yet another seedy hotel room. Yet another space for John Winchester to turn into a ghost war room. He posted pictures, newspaper clippings on the wall about the anomaly happening out on lonely stretches of Centennial Highway at Jericho, California. He had this gut feeling, though, this nagging sensation in the back of his stomach that refused to stop eating at him.

He found himself unable to focus on the task before him, thinking instead about the events that brought him to this very place in time, on that night, so many years ago, when his little Sammy was snuggled into his crib, safe and sound. Dean had begged for one more story before John had been able to tuck him into bed. And Mary, his sweet, sweet Mary, looked so completely angelic, lying there in their room.

For some reason, sleep just wasn't coming to him. He'd tried laying with Mary but, for all his tossing and turning, was too afraid he'd wake her up, and heaven knew, little Sammy would be up periodically through the night. They both needed their rest, and neither would be able to get it unless he headed down to the living room.

He'd channel surfed for a while, finally finding an old war movie. It reminded him of his days in the Marine Corps, before he had been honorably discharged. Before he really had a family to worry about. He didn't mind reliving his war hero days through cinematic experiences. Mary didn't worry so much anymore either, now that he was home full time.

And his boys. He had two handsome boys. Dean, always full of energy, always ready to help out, and Sammy... Sammy didn't say much yet, but John just knew that Sammy was full of potential. His life, at that point in time, was perfect. Of that, he was certain.

But in one moment, his whole life shattered. In one moment, in one shrieking, shrill moment, he knew something was beyond wrong. Mary... Where was his Mary? Sammy seemed to be fine. But, that little, dark puddle, there by his head...

And then his entire world changed. Mary was gone, in a fiery blaze, and Dean, little four-year-old Dean, had the responsibility of saving his baby brother. At first, John was stunned, shocked. The anger, the sadness, it all tumbled all around him, on a daily basis. No one could offer any answers. No one seemed to care that, before the roof of Sammy's nursery caught fire, that his beautiful Mary had been on the _ceiling_, held there, by some ungodly force.

In the weeks and months that followed, John started devoting a lot of his time to reading, to studying, to learning everything he could about demons and devils, spirits and specters. He was going to find what had done that to his Mary, to his family, to his world, and he was going to make the bastard pay.

In the coming years, he'd had trouble, trying to locate what he learned had been a demon. But now, while trying to focus on the Woman in White who seemed to be killing dozens of young men, he could think only of his two young men, his Dean and his Sammy.

He'd vowed to avenge their mother's death. And he hadn't done it yet. He'd saved others, but he had yet to save himself, or them, from the lives he'd laid out for them. Lives of hunters. A life Sammy had escaped, and a life Dean rarely questioned.

Dean. Dean was such a good, brave boy. Always had been. Dean would understand best what John had to do. This hunt in New Orleans would be good for him, give him confidence in his solo abilities. If Dean could take over for the day-to-day Winchester operation, then it would free John to focus on what he felt he had to do. John could find that damned demon and send him back to Hell forever, never to return to walk the earth. He would find a way to do that, whether or not it killed him.

He looked at his journal, what had become his operational bible. Dean would need it. Dean had the basics covered, but there would be some things that would elude him. Some things that the journal might help him uncover. And, in order to get him started, John turned to a page in the back, and wrote, in big, bold, black letters, just exactly where he needed to go to get started on his solo career, after finishing up the Woman in White mystery, of course. The code John used was unmistakable. Dean would know exactly what John wanted him to do, and Dean would do it, without question.

Closing the journal, he closed his eyes. "Please, God, help him continue on without me. And help me find the evil that walks this place. Let it torture no more souls. Let us figure this out, once and for all, so we can all be at peace." He wasn't entirely sure anyone was listening, but he figured it didn't hurt.

With that, John left the journal in the hotel room, and he left California.

* * *

The Road Ahead...

"Just... keep an open mind, yeah?"

"I believe in demons that walk the earth. How much more of an open mind do you want me to have?"

"C'mon," she said, standing, and holding her hand out to him.


	4. Chapter 4

For notes and disclaimer, see part one.

Then...

Dean rests up at the morgue, before going home with Darcy, who confesses that it's easy sometimes to read his thoughts. She learns that he understands her loneliness. That makes him both a comfort, while he's there, but a lingering pain, as she knows he won't stay for long. In the meantime, in California, John makes a drastic decision that will change the Winchesters' lives forever.

Now...

* * *

Dean slept heavily on the couch. That was one of the greatest abilities he had: ease of sleeping anywhere, anytime, on nearly anything. Darcy, on the other hand, dealt with her plaguing gift, even in the nighttime hours. To try to keep the constant noise at bay, in order to try to get some sleep, she slept with a radio on.

He wound up waking before she did. He guessed it was since he had been able to catch some sleep in the morgue, while she was working the night before. Heading into her kitchen, he attempted to make coffee. Normally, his quest for morning caffeine ended at a gas station or diner. He wasn't used to having a home, to having all the creature comforts at his fingertips.

His thoughts landed briefly on his childhood home. He was so young when they left. When they had to leave. After all, how could they remain in the home where his mother had perished a horrendous death?

Shaking his head, he cleared his mind of those thoughts. He didn't figure that would be a pleasant way to wake a telepath. Thoughts of burning flesh.

Instead, he focused again on the task of making coffee. He guessed at the number of scoops required, and filled the carafe with water. Trying to find where to put the water was another adventure, one that made Dean realize he would be a horrible husband if ever he were to settle down, and that, he knew, wasn't likely now or ever.

With the coffee made, more or less, and only a few scattered coffee grounds on the counter, he opened the fridge, to see what might be available for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, he could do. Hell, maybe even an omelet if he got really industrious, he thought, spying some peppers, onions and ham. Eh, too much effort. Closing the refrigerator door, he poked through the cabinets, locating cereal, and, aha, the piece de resistance: Pop-Tarts.

Grinning, he grabbed the box from the cupboard, pulling out a foil-wrapped pair, and popping it into the toaster. "Breakfast of champions," he said, leaning against her counter. Cautiously, he glanced at the coffee pot, where it seemed to be brewing a dark liquid. Surely it would be somewhat drinkable.

"It will be, if you put three scoops of grounds in there," said Darcy sleepily, stumbling into the kitchen in her pajamas, her dark hair softly messy around her face.

"Hey," he said, turning to look at her. He smiled a little, taking in her ensemble. "I think maybe there's four..."

"Well, that's okay. You and the coffee can wrestle. That'll be fun for me," she said, grabbing a clean plate from the dish strainer by the sink.

"I don't think it'd be too fun for me."

She shrugged as the breakfast pastries jumped from the toaster before snatching them quickly for her plate.

"Hey!"

She smiled, taking a bite.

Dean rolled his eyes, opening another package. "What are we, twelve? Eating Pop-Tarts for breakfast?"

"I wouldn't have minded an omelet."

"Was I thinking that too loudly? Did that wake you?"

She looked up at him, shaking her head. The thought that had pulled her from her sleep was that of a four year old boy carrying an infant out of a burning house. What was probably his most vivid memory yanked her from her slumber, but he didn't have to know that.

"So, this professor. How do you know him?"

"Well, like I said, I had his class but dropped out of school... The first couple lectures were about voodoo. I guess to keep the undergrads interested, y'know."

"Makes sense. He'd probably have my attention." His breakfast popped from the toaster. "So, when are we meeting him?"

She checked the clock on the stove. "We should get moving, actually," she said, grabbing two thermal to-go mugs. "Fill 'em up. I'll put on real clothes."

"If you feel you have to..."

"You're very funny," she said, padding back through the living room.

It wasn't too long before Dean followed Darcy into the humanities building at LSU, and towards Dr. Yates's office. His door was open, and inside were a few bookshelves and a cluttered desk. It was just as Darcy had remembered.

"I'll be," Dr. Yates said with a warm, gregarious smile as Darcy stood in the doorway. "I was shocked to get your e-mail. I really didn't expect to see you again."

"I hope it's not a bother," she said.

Dean, having spoken to his fair share of various people in his many years of hunting, could tell that there was something in Darcy's voice, something that was uneasy.

"Of course not! Come in, please." He smiled, watching as Darcy entered, before fully noticing that Dean was with her. "Who's, uh..." His smile faltered slightly. "Who's your friend?"

"A friend of mine from home," Darcy said, lying easily. "He's visiting for the week. Wanted a crash course on 'Nawlins' history. I told him you were the guy to talk to about voodoo."

"Well, any friend of Darcy's is a friend of mine. What would you like to know?" he asked.

"We've passed like a dozen voodoo shops on one street alone... Just how real a practice is it?" Dean asked, helping himself to a seat.

Dr. Yates shook his head. "Total bunk."

Darcy's eyebrows drifted up her forehead.

"Really?" asked Dean.

"Completely," he confirmed. "Let me give you something..." He started poking through a stack of things on his desk. "Technically I'm still editing, finishing it up, but you're more than welcome to have this copy. Mostly just little grammar issues, misplaced commas, what have you. Aha..." He pulled out a manuscript bound by a plastic cover. "Here you are," he said, handing it over to Darcy.

Dean noticed the way she was holding her mouth. She looked like she was definitely on edge.

"So, you only tell undergrads that it's possible anymore?" Darcy asked.

Dr. Yates leaned back in his chair. "Tenure depends upon strong academic facts. The evidence is overwhelming that it's just... hooey. And a lot of my kids, they're not from here. They're curious. Like your, uh, friend, here," he said, glancing over at Dean.

"Well, let's talk theoretically, Prof," Dean said, jumping in. "Say someone was able to pull off a voodoo curse. How do you break it?"

"It's not real, son. There are no such things as curses. People believe what they want to. That's why we have so many voodoo places. It's a commentary on our belief system right now. Pretty sad, really. To think some nonsense incantation and a potion of moth antennae and rat fur can solve their problems."

"I said theoretically. Surely there's something in the lore, somewhere..."

"You can believe in the bunk all you want, son, but it's still not true." He looked at Darcy. "I would love to spend more time catching up, but I have a class in a few minutes."

"I'm so glad you took the time out of your obviously busy schedule to meet with us," Darcy told him, trying hard to keep the disdain out of her voice, watching as he stood.

Dean got to his feet and placed his hand on Darcy's lower back slightly, comfortingly as he heard the tense tone. "Thanks anyway, Prof."

"Any time," he said, walking out into the corridor with them. "I really am honored, Darcy, that you would come to me with your questions." He looked up, spotting a distracted looking girl further down the hall. "If you'll excuse me..."

Dean watched as Dr. Yates crossed towards a young co-ed and placed a protective arm around her shoulders. "Well, looks like somebody's teacher's pet."

Darcy was quiet, watching the girl with the honey blonde hair and preppy attire. It looked as though she had a scarf tied around her wrist, like a bracelet. Darcy wondered, briefly, if that was the new style. She frowned. "She... She's thinking about... her dad."

Dean looked at her slowly. "That's important because...?"

"Because, her dad," she began, looking back up at him, "was Alain Martin."

He immediately turned back to the girl. "Huh... What else you reading?"

"Just... grief," she said, shaking her head.

"Normal stuff?"

"Yeah."

"Well, let's get out of here, look at this book, see if it makes any sense," he said, guiding her towards the exit of the building.

"He was lying, too," she told him quietly.

"What about?"

"He believes in it. He told my class that he was a true believer. And he was. It was the truth," she said, looking up at him.

"So, why would he lie?"

"I don't know," she admitted as they emerged into the morning sunshine.

He frowned. "You can't tell motive?"

She shook her head. "If he's not thinking about his motives, I'm not getting it. If you don't think about an experience, I don't know it happened."

"So, we could've met the killer already, and you would have no idea?"

"Not if he wasn't thinking about the murder at the time I passed him, no."

He sighed. "Well, that sucks."

"Well, I'm sorry I don't have a more magical gift," she shot back.

He looked down at her. "Sarcasm doesn't really become you. And neither does whatever the hell it was between you and Yates."

"Did you ever go to college, at all?"

"I've been a little busy," he admitted.

"Any college you go to, you'll start to hear rumors... Certain teachers are into things they ought not, and here at LSU, they have their fair share."

"What, Dr. Yates likes students?"

"Much to, what I imagine would be, the horror of Mrs. Yates."

"So, he made a pass at you or something?"

She eased down onto a bench in the quad. "Let's just say his thoughts started making me _really_ uncomfortable, and I dropped before there were any official propositions."

Dean dropped beside her. "So why even bother coming back and seeing him if he's such an ass?"

"Because, he's the go-to guy for voodoo here. Or, at least, he used to be, before he started coming up with his latest book," she said, holding up the bound manuscript.

"So, Dr. Yates is thinkin' about little miss rich girl. You think there's something there?"

She shrugged as she thumbed through the pages. "Didn't get a very good chance to read on his thoughts. Hers were pretty strong."

"Little girl Martin?" Off her nod, he continued. "Is that normal?"

"I've heard lots of really... loud... thoughts at the morgue, when people come to ID a body. Thoughts that are connected to particularly intense emotions tend to be louder... I mean, people scream in their minds, y'know? So, it's like they're screaming in my ear, though they don't necessarily say anything out loud."

Dean looked at her for a long moment. "Man, I would love to get you around a demon."

She looked up at him, amused. "What?"

"Just to see what a demon thinks."

"What makes you think I can read a demon's mind? You'd think it would have a firewall protection or something..."

"Either way, I think it would make for an interesting experiment. I'm hoping Dad'll contact me, so I can see if he knows anything extra about voodoo. He knows so much about so many of these creatures." He paused briefly. "I think my dad would like you."

She smiled a little. "If he's anything like you, I'm sure I'd like him, too."

"So," Dean said, helping himself to the manuscript. "Where to next?"

Darcy sighed. "Well, if that's all Yates' crap... We might as well go check out another expert witness."

"And who might that be?"

"Just... keep an open mind, yeah?"

"I believe in ghosts that walk the earth. How much more of an open mind do you want me to have?"

"C'mon," she said, standing, and holding her hand out to him.

He looked at her open palm for a moment before placing his hand in hers, and standing. It wasn't long before he was then being pulled along, through campus, towards a building a few blocks away.

It was a small building with dingy vinyl siding and glass window panes coated in colors of purple, red, and blue. A stylized Egyptian eye was painted on the door. At least a half dozen wind chimes hung from the eaves, creating a harmonic deluge of sound. Dean's eyes landed on the sign by the door, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

"Priestess Adaria, Voodoo Spirit Guide," he read.

Darcy looked back at him. "Do you have any other bright ideas?"

Exhaling, he followed Darcy to the front door, where she knocked politely before entering. The ghost hunter was careful not to leave her side. He wasn't sure he trusted some random Voodoo priestess. She might even be the one they were looking for! The heavy scent of patchouli surrounded them, making Dean wave at the air in front of him. "Seriously, somebody needs to lay off the incense," he muttered.

Darcy shook her head as she looked around, hoping to find where this Priestess was hiding. She didn't have to look long. A short woman rounded the corner. She wore a brightly colored dress that swirled round her legs as she walked. Her hair was hidden beneath a silky handkerchief. Her skin was the color of rich mocha, and her eyes a piercing baby blue. "I am Priestess Adaria. What can I do for you?"

Darcy glanced at Dean, who took over. "We're students at LSU. Dr. Yates' class. We want to do a research paper on the history of certain voodoo curses. We were wondering if you could help us out?"

That Dean was one smart cookie, Darcy realized, and was very quick on his feet.

"What kinds of things do you wish to know?" the priestess asked, lowering herself onto a plush wingback chair.

"Is it possible to kill with voodoo?" Dean asked. "With a voodoo doll or whatever?"

"Not a doll, no. Killing takes a special kind of black voodoo magic. It is not a skill in which I specialize," she admitted.

Darcy jumped in: "Do you know of anyone in town who might specialize in it?"

She shook her head. "Not recently. I believe, nowadays, that the police might call that 'an accessory to murder...' Not something a priestess wants to go to prison for."

Before Dean continued, he thought as loudly as he could: Is she telling the truth? He was relived to see Darcy incline her head. "What about legends of old voodoo practitioners?"

"Oh, of course. Back ages ago, when everyone believed in the voodoo, certain priestesses and priests were especially talented with the darkest of arts. But, it was a very, very dangerous practice. Often deadly," she warned.

"For the voodoo practitioner?" Dean continued.

Adaria shook her head. "The one askin' for the curse, askin' for the dark magic to do its bidding and kill another. It was said that a little of your soul went away with the deceased. That was normally too high a price for most folk to pay, but some... some just couldn't resist the temptation, the thought of 'getting away' with murder because the voodoo did it."

"When they did perform these rituals, what normally happened?" Darcy asked, Adaria having her rapt attention.

"A high monetary price was paid. A contract was entered into. In very ancient times, blood of the purchaser was necessary. The priest or priestess worked up the ritual. It took some time. Murder, after all, is a very difficult request, even under normal circumstances."

Dean frowned. "Are there any famous ones? Any really famous voodoo people who spawned legends, followings? I mean, I know about Marie Laveau, the way people leave stuff at her grave, but what about voodoo assassins who could kill?"

"It is said that all voodoo priests and priestesses live on forever, for those who truly believe. The ones who worked the black magic spent more time studying, learning, practicing than some others and are often the ones granted the most favor in the next life."

"So, it's possible that one of these voodoo high priests, having earned so much favor, having become so great with his skill, that he could come back? Now? And work his black magic?"

"With voodoo, child, anything is possible," she told him.

"How does one go about killing an undead voodoo high priest?"

She shook her head. "You don't."

"There has to be some way," Dean pressed.

"You don't, because it can't exist."

Darcy frowned. "I take it you're not looking to be one of the eternal voodoo priestesses?"

Smiling, Adaria chuckled, but said nothing further.

"Just, for the sake of argument, say you could," said Dean. "I don't imagine they're like you're average, ordinary, run of the mill monsters, right? No silver bullet, no stake through the heart?"

"Legends say nothing of the killing of voodoo priests or priestesses. While we live, we are all flesh and bone. In death... in death can be a tricky thing, if one were to cast spells on oneself," she said knowingly.

Darcy held her gaze on Adaria as Dean took a step back from the priestess, rubbing his forehead. "All right," he said, trying not to sound defeatist. "Thank you for your time."

"My pleasure, child," she said, smiling.

Dean was halfway to the door before he realized his sidekick wasn't beside him. Glancing back, he saw her, still by Adaria's chair, a look of concentration on her face. He didn't want to interrupt whatever it was she was doing, but he had pretty much ended their visit and she wasn't moving. He started to take a step back to her, when Darcy smiled at Adaria, and skidded over to Dean quickly.

Opening the door, Dean led the way back towards campus. "Something you want to share?"

"She's scared."

"Of what?" he asked, glancing back at her.

"The High Priestess of the Bayou."

"What priestess? What bayou?"

"The only one that Priestess Adaria thinks can transcend death. And I don't know what bayou. We probably need to hit the history records, find out about the death of an old voodoo lady, cross-reference terrain around New Orleans…"

"What she said about the process, the high cost price, the blood of the purchaser..."

Darcy nodded. "All true. And I'd imagine so in death, at least that's what she was thinking," she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder towards Adaria's place.

"So, we're looking for someone with a little money who wanted Martin dead," Dean said.

"We should see if we can check the ex-wife's bank records. See if she came into any money... And then cashed a portion out."

Dean nodded slightly. "And check back with Collette at the law firm. You'd have to have money to hire one of them for your attorney. And, I'd imagine, lawyers make plenty of enemies throughout the year, right?"

"So, where do we start?"

He shrugged. "Lunch?"

She laughed slightly, shaking her head.

"What?"

"Just... here we are, talking about voodoo high priestesses, potential murders, and you want lunch?"

"Now, now. One of us, and I won't say which, works at a _morgue_, y'know, so death and lunch should go hand in hand."

"All right," she said, waving him off. "Would you do me one favor though?"

"Sure."

"Next time you want to ask me something in a thought..." She looked up at him. "Please don't treat me like you're trying to ask where the bathroom is in some foreign country with someone who doesn't speak English. Thinking totally normal thoughts will get the point across clearly."

"Gotcha."

* * *

The Road Ahead...

All she could hear, all that started to ring in her ears, at first very low and soft, but then building in intensity and volume, was the chanting. She covered her ears with her hands, letting go of the door. She started to crumple, as though the strength from her legs simply gave way.


	5. Chapter 5

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Then...

Dean crashes at Darcy's for the night before going to see Dr. Yates at LSU. Dr. Yates, contrary to Darcy's knowledge, now says he doesn't believe in voodoo, and provides them with his latest scholarly work. As Dean and Darcy leave, Dr. Yates puts his arm around a student--Alain Martin's daughter. A visit to a local voodoo priestess brings them but one clue: the High Priestess of the Bayou.

Now...

* * *

The café Dean chose for lunch was one near the Griffin and Martin law firm. After all, he definitely wanted to chat up the secretary again, see if she knew of anyone who might want to harm the esquire. Over the blue plate specials, Dean and Darcy discussed possible theories, and delved into Dr. Yates' draft, looking for anything that might, even in passing, indicate a mystical bayou or apparently the mother of all voodoo priestesses in Louisiana.

They hadn't hit on much.

After Dean paid for lunch, the duo headed out into the crisp October air. "Y'know," Darcy said, "you should take her a present."

He frowned. "Who?"

"The secretary, Collette."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"If you come bearing a sympathy gift, she'd probably be more willing to open up to you."

"She was plenty willing to open up to me yesterday," he said, heading towards where the Impala was parked.

"On your good looks alone?"

"See, even you agree that I have good looks."

"Dean, c'mon. Sometimes, you need to use a little finesse."

He stopped on the sidewalk, looking back at her. "It's your first day on your first hunt, and you're giving me pointers?"

"I'm giving you information from a woman's point of view. I'd imagine, with you and your dad doing these hunts, maybe you haven't had much feminine input."

"I'm not giving some chick I don't know a gift. What the hell would I get her?"

"Just a fruit basket. Something to munch on. That's classic Southern gifting after death. If there's one thing you learn, working in a morgue, is the customs regarding the recently departed."

"Fine. Whatever. A fruit basket."

"There's a little market just down the street. It's not like we have to go very far..."

"I said 'fine.' You won already," he said with a sigh. "I bought lunch, though, this should be your purchase," he told her as they continued down the sidewalk.

"I'm letting you stay at my apartment, rent free, for the entirety of this case. You don't think I'm pulling my weight around here?"

"I'm starting to not like this partnership thing," he told her warningly. "I'm not made of money, y'know. This kind of job doesn't normally _pay_ in anything but grateful thanks."

"Isn't that enough?"

"It doesn't keep gas in the Impala, no."

"How 'bout we flip a coin?" she suggested.

Dean narrowed his eyes slightly, then held up his right fist, cupped in his left hand. "Rock, paper, scissors. Right now."

"With a telepath?" she asked, moderately amused. "Are you sure?"

"Are you scared?" he countered. "Put it up."

Slowly, she placed her own right fist in her left hand.

"On three," he told her. "One..."

She started to realize he wasn't thinking about what he was going to throw. He was thinking about the nervous look in her eyes.

"...Two..."

Her beautiful eyes. That was definitely not fair.

"...Three."

She impulsively threw paper, figuring him for a rock kind of guy. After all, that was the music he listened to. She looked, in shock, as he had scissors, which he used to "cut" her paper. "Two outta three," she said quickly.

"Oh, c'mon. That was fair and square and you know it."

"Who's scared now?" she asked, holding her fist in her hand again.

"Sweetheart, I'm never scared," he told her, raising his fist as well.

Darcy was frustrated, and flustered, by his thoughts again. This time, it was about the way she held her mouth, the way she bit her kissable lower lip in the quick three-count. She couldn't believe it as she lost again, with her scissors to his rock.

He grinned as he followed her, shaking her head, into the fresh fruit and vegetable market. He looked around at the abundance of color: green pears, red apples, yellow bananas, and even produce he didn't recognize.

Darcy seemed to know exactly where she was going, and picked a small pre-made fruit basket from the shelf. It was wrapped in cellophane, and tied with a large bow, and held a selection of apples and oranges, nuts and wrapped candies. "Perfect."

She quietly paid for her selection, glancing over at Dean, at the smug smile on his face.

"You have to carry it," she said, holding the basket out to him. With a shrug, he took it.

Griffin and Martin was only a few blocks away, and Dean didn't figure he needed anything particularly special from the Impala, so they walked towards the firm. Wordlessly, he led Darcy into the building and to the appropriate floor.

The mood hadn't changed much from the day before, and Dean and Darcy easily slipped past the receptionist towards Collette's workspace and Alain Martin's office. He smiled gently at her, turning on the charm. "Collette."

She looked up. "Oh... Hi."

"We brought you something," he said, offering her the basket.

"Oh, Dean, you didn't have to," she said, sniffling. "So thoughtful. Thank you."

"We were wondering, if you had a minute, we had a couple questions..."

She nodded, gesturing towards the chairs in front of her desk. "Sure."

Dean flashed that winning smile of his, and eased down directly across from her. "Thanks."

"I'm Darcy, by the way," she said, realizing that Dean had no intention of introducing them.

Dean overlooked Darcy's statement to continue: "Have you heard anything more from the police?"

Sighing, Collette shook her head. "No. Nothing."

Dean glanced at his "partner." "Darcy's a law student with me, and we're looking into it a little. We have a couple theories. We thought you would know best, maybe you could help us clarify a few things?"

"Oh, sure. Ask me anything," she said, sniffling.

"Do you think Mr. Martin's ex-wife might have wanted bad things for him?" Dean asked.

Collette shook her head. "Oh, no. I don't think so. He never spoke about her much, but he always made sure Karen had gifts at Christmas and on her birthday. Sometimes he'd have me pick out something for her."

Dean nodded slowly. "What about former clients? I mean, I'm sure some people might hold a grudge if he wasn't able to win their case for them."

"Oh, sure. For how long he's been practicing law, there could be hundreds."

"Any of them particularly stick out in your head? Any you think might really want to hurt him now?"

Collette shook her head. "We haven't had any threats or anything, not in the past few years."

"Huh," Dean said, frowning.

"What about his daughter?" Darcy asked, jumping in.

"Patricia?" she asked, turning to Darcy. "Why would Patricia want to hurt her father?"

"We just want to check every possibility, y'know?" Dean said quickly.

"I know Patricia probably as well as anybody. I mean, before I started working here, for Alain, I worked for him as her babysitter." She seemed to hesitate, her eyes watering, thinking about her beloved Alain.

Darcy's eyebrows flew up her forehead. Somewhat cliché, really, but apparently Collette knew Alain Martin in a very special way. She glanced over at Dean, wondering if he had figured that out yet.

"She's just the sweetest child..."

"Now, I'm sure the age difference can't possibly be that great," Dean said, flashing her the toothpaste commercial smile again.

"Six years," she said with a nod.

Darcy's mind reeled. If Patricia had known about her father's indiscretion with her former babysitter and his current secretary, Darcy figured she would've gone after the interloper, who, after all, was only a few years older. "What, um... What about voodoo?" Darcy asked, looking up at Collette. "Did Mr. Martin believe in it?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no, of course not. Neither do I. I remember one time, a couple days before Halloween. Patricia must've been twelve or thirteen, right after the divorce was final. She had some little friends over. Mr. Martin found them playing with Tarot cards and a Ouija board. He totally freaked."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked, frowning.

"He told her it was all nonsense. He tossed the cards and the game in the garbage can and lit a match, setting it all on fire, there in front of all the girls. Patricia screamed at him, how he'd embarrassed her in front of her friends. Y'know, general teenage rebellion, really."

"Was he an overbearing father?" Darcy asked.

She shook her head. "He was the most loving guy you could ever imagine. He gave Patricia anything she wanted."

"Except the Ouija board," Dean said, frowning.

"He tried to teach her to rely on rational things. I mean, all that extra stuff, it just doesn't exist."

"Of course not," Dean said, trying to sound convincing, that of course, devils and demons, ghosts and monsters were just fairytale falsehood. But, he knew so much better than that.

"Well, thank you for answering our questions," Darcy said.

"I'm so glad you came back by," she said, looking over at Dean.

"You still have my number," he said as he stood. "Just let me know if you need anything."

"Maybe... we could have dinner... Sometime."

Darcy shook her head slightly.

"Yeah," Dean said with a nod. "Sometime."

'When hell freezes over,' Darcy thought to herself, glad Dean didn't share her gift lest he read her mind. But, at the same time, she wondered where the jealousy came from. Dean was a good looking guy, who probably talked to hot looking women like Collette all the time. Darcy, after all, was just an ordinary looking girl with an extraordinary power which served to intimidate oftentimes, rather than entice.

"Darcy?"

Looking up, she realized Dean was already away from Collette's desk and into the main corridor. She quickly caught up, walking with Dean towards the elevator.

"You want to tell me what the hell is going on?"

"She and Martin were sleeping together," she said, once they were safely out of earshot.

"Bangin' the babysitter-come-secretary. He's not the most original douche, is he?"

Darcy shook her head. "But, it makes me think the daughter isn't the culprit."

"Why's that?"

"If it were my father, and he left my mother for some girl just a couple years older than me? I'd kill her, not him."

"That does seem like a more rational thing to do. Unless, he was an overbearing father, and Collette wants to remember her lover as the kindest guy in the world."

"My point is, Dean," she said, as the elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside, "that we're still nowhere."

The doors swallowed them whole, and Dean was quiet as they descended a floor. "We can confirm whether Dad was oppressive or not by talking to the neighbors. I've got his divorce papers in the car; they've got their old address."

"We should probably talk to the mother, too," Darcy said.

"We should... and a little digging. We need to know about this high priestess grand pooh-bah. I can handle canvassing the neighborhood and chatting up Mom. However, one of us needs to hit the library, check out some historical records..."

"I could tell if they're lying..."

"I've done this twenty years of my life. I can tell, nine times out of ten, when somebody's lying to me."

Darcy sighed.

"C'mon. Your first hunt, you have to do a little grunt work."

She relented. "Drop me off at the library, then."

* * *

Dean visited Patricia Martin's childhood neighborhood and found the stately home the Martin family had once lived happily in. It looked like an old money kind of neighborhood. He wondered if Alain came from a well-to-do family or if he was neuvo-riche with his law practice. One thing was certain, though, if Dean found some of his old neighbors, they'd probably let him know. It seemed like one of those well-trimmed, well-kept neighborhoods where everyone knew every little secret behind every white picket fence.

He approached the house to the right of the Martin's old residence, and rang the bell. With his torn jeans and leather jacket, he probably looked out of place, but he figured it could add to his pre-made cover. As a middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway, he flashed her a smile.

"May I help you?" she asked.

"I certainly hope so, ma'am. My name is Dean Tanner, I'm a private investigator, hired by the law offices of Griffin and Martin. I'm looking into Mr. Alain Martin's death. Several years ago, he lived in the house right next to you," he said, glancing that direction. "Did you live here at the same time?"

"Oh, sure, I knew the Martins. My son is his daughter's age."

"Is there anything you can tell me, perhaps about the marriage, or Mrs. Martin?"

"It was horrible what Alain did to Karen. Leaving her like that? He brought home divorce papers on what would've been their fifteenth anniversary."

"Ouch..."

"It was awful!"

"Do you think Mrs. Martin would hold a grudge? Do you think she would want harm to come to Mr. Martin?"

She shook her head. "Of course not. Karen was the sweetest woman. President of the PTO for years. She was always involved with Patricia's activities."

Dean nodded, filing all that away in his memory. "How was Mr. Martin as a father?"

She let out a mirthless laugh. "He was horrible. When our children were smaller, I used to let Richard go next door, play tag or charades or whatever. Patricia was a shy child in school. Karen thought a little socialization would be good, and I agreed. One day Richard came running home, telling me how Alain had _screamed_ at Patricia and him for playing make-believe. 'Children aren't superheroes,' he yelled. Richard was devastated. Patricia was crushed. As Patricia got older, the yelling continued. Why she chose to stay with her father in the divorce was beyond me."

"Is there anything else in particular you remember? Anything else you'd like to share?"

"I hate to say it, Mr. Tanner, but I think the only ones who are even remotely sad he's gone are probably those paying your check at that law firm."

"Thank you for your time."

She nodded, and disappeared back within the house.

A couple hours later, Dean had heard the same story from the entire neighborhood. Karen was the saint. Alain, definitely the sinner. And Patricia was shy, introverted; a very quiet child.

As he started back for the Impala, he wondered if Darcy was getting anywhere on the local history check. Before he could unlock the door, his cell phone rang: Darcy. He smiled a little. "Were you reading my mind from that far away?"

"What? No... Distance doesn't work so great."

"I was just wondering what you found out."

"Well, I printed off some information for us to go over... There was this lady in the thirties who practiced voodoo from a shack, really... She might be our high priestess. But, I had to go to work, right?"

"Yeah..." he said, wondering what her work had to do with their investigation.

"They just rolled the coroner. Dean, Karen Martin is dead."

"What?"

"She was in her home, alone. Household accident. She slipped over something or... Well, we're not sure what, but that's what the police are thinking. I'm thinking most normal middle aged women don't trip and accidentally kill themselves, not when we know better..."

"Well, I guess this means we can eliminate Mom from the list of suspects. Where is this place? I'm going to head over..." After Darcy relayed directions, Dean slid behind the wheel of the Impala. "Let me know what you hear from your post, all right?"

"Sure."

"I'll let you know if I hear anything," he said, before terminating the call. As he sped towards Karen Martin's apartment, Dean dialed his dad's number, listening to the rings. There was no answer this time, no voice mail message, nothing. "Damn it," he muttered. He tossed his phone into the passenger seat.

* * *

Patricia Martin sat quietly at her desk in her dorm room. Her room looked like a poster for LSU recruitment. Her decor was tasteful. She had several university things hanging on the walls as well--pennants, shakers. Her room was tidy, neat. The bed was made, the floor swept, and everything put away in its rightful place. Her honey blonde hair curled around her shoulders, and she wore a khaki skirt and a soft blue sweater set. From the open curtains, she could see a police car slowly roll to a stop in front of her building. The lights were on, but the sirens weren't.

She sighed softly, closing her folklore text book. Standing, she slid the book back into her bookshelf, between her English and Geometry texts. As she waited for the knock on her door, she flattened her skirt and straightened her cardigan. It wouldn't be much longer now, as her room was on the second floor, near the stairs. She spotted that the closet door wasn't closed all the way, and she could see the toe of her mud-covered sneaker. Crossing quickly, she closed the door. No one would know she ventured out again, for one last visit.

As predicted, she heard the knock on her door. She listened to the sound her ballet flats made on the linoleum as she crossed the tile. Inhaling deeply, she opened the door, seeing a uniformed officer and a plain clothed police detective. "Yes?"

"Ms. Patricia Martin?" asked the officer.

"That's me."

"We regret to inform you that we have some very bad news for you," started the detective.

"Is this about my father?" she asked. "Do you have news about his death?"

The detective shook his head. "No. It's your mother, Karen Martin. There was an accident and she succumbed to the injuries caused by it."

"Oh," she said quietly.

"We're so sorry," said the officer.

Patricia started to feel lightheaded. She swayed slightly on her feet. "What happened, exactly? What accident?"

"Best we can tell, she was in the kitchen of her apartment. She blacked out, hit her head on the cabinet..." said the detective.

Patricia put a hand on her forehead. "I... both my parents now, within days of each other?"

"We're so sorry to have to tell you this," said the officer.

She didn't understand why her lightheadedness was continuing. After all, she had known this was coming. She had asked for it. She found she had to hold onto the door to keep upright.

The detective noticed the color was starting to drain from her face. "Ms. Martin?"

The High Priestess had warned her she might start to feel this way, that when voodoo demanded payment, it would receive it, no matter where she was or what she was doing. Two deaths would not be enough to claim her soul. She knew that. Dr. Yates had _told_ her that. The High Priestess had confirmed that more would have to die by her order before the voodoo took her completely. She was supposed to be fine.

Patricia looked up, realizing that the detective had spoken to her again but that she hadn't heard it. "I... I'm sorry?" She saw him move his lips but realized she couldn't hear him speak. All she could hear, all that started to ring in her ears, at first very low and soft, but then building in intensity and volume, was the chanting. She covered her ears with her hands, letting go of the door. She started to crumple, as though the strength from her legs simply gave way. Crying out, she fell into the officer's arms, as the chanting consumed her, her consciousness fading.

* * *

The Road Ahead:

"You come t'kill me, too, chil'?" she asked, in her thick Cajun drawl.

Dean spun around, not seeing her. "Where are you?" He could swear he felt her breath on his ear when she whispered her answer.

"Behind you."


	6. Chapter 6

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Then...

Dean and Darcy revisit Collette at the law firm, where she speaks of Alain lovingly and Darcy figures out they had more than a boss-employee relationship. Dean checks out the Martins' old neighborhood to discover Karen Martin was the saint to Alain's sinner, and Patricia was a quiet child. Darcy, from work, lets Dean know that the coroner's been rolled, and Karen certainly isn't the killer, as she's the next victim. Patricia gets a visit from the police and passes out, and not from the stress of knowing that her parents are now both dead.

Now...

* * *

Dean had been to a number of crime scenes in his day. He was used to police lines being a certain distance from the dead body. This one was certainly no different. The entire apartment complex was blocked off, except for some residents, residents who lived far enough away from Karen Martin's, who wouldn't interfere with the investigation by simply heading home.

Parking the Impala, he headed casually towards the group that had gathered. For all the complaining people did about the violence on TV, a crime scene never failed to bring a crowd. He stood quietly amongst the assembly for a moment before asking: "What happened?"

The man next to him glanced over. "Some lady on the second floor died," he said, nodding towards the open curtains in the corner of the building.

"Somebody kill her or what?"

He shook his head. "I heard the police say that she fell in the kitchen, hit the knife block over onto herself and hit her head on the counter."

"Ouch..."

"Pretty convenient, if you ask me," said the sideline detective.

Dean had to agree of course. "Oh, yeah." The voodoo chick had perfected masking her murders.

His thoughts immediately went to Patricia Martin. Why kill both parents? He couldn't imagine a client of Alain's turning on his ex-wife as well. It didn't make sense. The client shouldn't know his ex-wife.

Dean rocked up on his toes to watch as the body was wheeled out and into the coroner's van. Picking up his cell phone, he started back for the Impala.

"New Orleans City Morgue," answered Darcy.

"Body's on its way back to you now. Rumor has it, she managed to knife herself with a couple kitchen knives..."

"They'll start the autopsy when they get back."

"Okay. Now, you said you had information on where this voodoo pooh-bah lives, right?"

"Yeah, some."

"I'll swing by and pick it up."

She was silent for a moment. "You're going after her by yourself?"

"Darcy..."

"I've done this much so far. I want to go with you!"

"It's not a good idea."

"Give me ten minutes, Dean, please."

"I'll be there in ten, ready for the information you've got." As Dean hung up, he quickly replayed the conversation in his head. He didn't think he was being unreasonable. After all, he had a job to do--his job--and that was to kill that voodoo bitch.

She'd been a great asset to him the past two days, he thought as he cruised New Orleans traffic. It seemed like they'd been together so much longer. He realized, too, he should give his dad a break. He was probably hiking through some overgrown trail hunting something himself. He'd try again in another day or two. By then, he could probably catch up with him, help out on whatever it was he was chasing.

He had a feeling, after all, that the voodoo bitch would be gone by morning. If he could figure out how to kill a voodoo bitch, that is.

Checking his watch, he realized he was a few minutes early as he pulled up outside the morgue. He leaned back in the seat, closing his eyes for a moment. Darcy was a sweet girl. Smart. John really would like her. Maybe he could bring his dad out here someday. Just thinking about her, he was almost certain he could smell her shampoo or perfume or whatever it was wafting into the Impala on the cooling night breeze.

He jumped when the passenger door opened. "Hey. Got that information for me?"

"We can make better time if I read while you drive."

"Darcy..." he said warningly, thinking about how hard this hunt could be, hoping to make her realize that this was _not_ something she wanted to do.

Darcy ignored it, pulling out a map to give directions. "In the 1930s, there was an older lady named Opal Moon. She ran a voodoo shop just outside of town. People used to complain about the smells and noises. She was known far and wide as the voodoo priestess who could do anything. Bring someone back from the dead, make someone die, make someone love you, whatever." She looked up at him. "We're not going yet?"

Dean sighed, putting the Impala in gear and driving off. "What happened to her?"

"Well, in the Depression, people would give her all their money in the hopes for a miracle. In order to perform it, she demanded the faithfulness of all involved. They had to worship her voodoo religion with her for a month. Once she believed they were believers, she would do whatever it was they wanted. After a month, she tried to pull off their miracle, to make them all rich, ensure they all had jobs, whatever. It failed."

"So, they killed her."

"That's putting it politely. They dismembered her, buried her in seven different locations in the wetlands outside of town."

He sighed. "High Priestess of the Bayou."

"Yeah."

"Do we know all seven locations?"

"Even if we did, we're at or below sea level. Bits and pieces could've easily been swept out to the Gulf," she said, shaking her head.

He sighed. "Then, the normal stuff won't work to kill her: salting and burning the bones, not if I don't know where all the pieces are."

"So, what do we do?"

He sighed. His dad would know what to do. John Winchester could kill anything. "We go to this bayou. If she's resurrected, she's gotta be there."

* * *

Patricia woke slowly at the hospital. She blinked, trying to focus. She felt something up her nose. Oxygen, she realized. Her right hand hurt from an IV.

She sat up quickly, realizing the mistake once it was too late. Her head started swimming again. Cradling her head in her hands, she waited for the spinning to stop before slowly looking up. "Somebody? Anybody?"

She heard the chanting again, the same sounds she heard before she passed out.

"That wasn't supposed to happen! You're not supposed to take me!"

The chanting faded away, this time to a cackling laughter and a haunting voice. "You belong t' me, chil'."

* * *

Dean figured the best way to protect Darcy was give her what information he thought would be relevant. "Holy ground is always good against restless spirits. Keep your eyes open for churches," he told her. "If we have to, we can run to them for safety."

"Okay."

"Do you know how to handle a gun?"

"No," she said slowly.

"If you're _really_ sure you want to do this, then I'll show you before we start hiking."

"Hey, Dean..."

"Yeah?"

"Why would Patricia kill both her parents?"

He was silent a moment. "I've been thinking about that. Karen Martin was an overly-involved mom. Taking her to ballet classes, violin lessons, academic team meets. Maybe she thought her mom was too involved with her to realize she was losing her father. Maybe she thought she should've done more to try to keep their little family together."

She nodded, glancing back at the map again in the dim light. "Take a right up here..."

"Darcy..."

"Yeah?"

"While we're out there, if I think 'run,' I want you to run as far and as fast as you can to get away."

She sighed.

"Darcy, promise me," he told her in all seriousness.

She knew it was just for his peace of mind. "I promise," she lied convincingly.

He nodded, satisfied.

The rest of the ride was in silence, except for Darcy's directions. Dean pulled off the side of the old highway, parking the Impala. Exiting the car, his first stop was the trunk. Popping it, he also opened the hidden compartment, propping it open with a shotgun.

"Whoa..." Darcy's eyes grew large as she saw his cache.

Wordlessly, he handed her a flashlight. He loaded his jacket pockets with a few choice items, a flask of holy water, rock salt, and spare ammunition. He handed her a handgun, and gave her a quick tutorial on how to use it. "Just don't shoot me," was his only warning. He then grabbed the shotgun and his own flashlight, before closing the compartment and the trunk. "Let's get started," he said, looking at the foreboding wooded bayou.

Dean led the way, his flashlight occasionally sweeping the area in front of him. Darcy was careful to hold the gun down, at her side, while her flashlight bounced along the trail Dean cut.

"It really is spooky in here," she admitted.

"No worse than some other places I've seen," he told her.

She fell silent, keeping up with him. She tried not to listen to his thoughts as he remembered some of those particularly scary locations. It was hard not to. After all, he was the only one even remotely close to her. His thoughts rang clearly in her mind.

As if he could read her thoughts, he asked: "Are you picking up anybody else?"

"Not yet," she admitted. "If the high priestess is dead, I might not be able to read her thoughts. I mean, none of the bodies at the morgue speak to me, so..."

Dean had forgotten about that. "It's not too late for you to go back and sit in the car."

"Forget it. I'm not sitting anywhere alone even remotely close to this place."

"You're scared?"

She didn't answer.

"Darcy," he said with a sigh.

"Let's just keep moving."

As they progressed further and further into the creepy bayou, the wind picked up, howling maniacally through the trees. Darcy swallowed hard, trying to keep her fear at bay. The wind sounded like people... people in pain.

"I think we're getting close," Dean told her.

"Oh, good," she said, trying to sound optimistic. She wasn't sure if finding the voodoo high priestess would really end their problems, or just begin them. What Darcy definitely didn't like was what sounded like the rumble of distant thunder.

'TV this morning said it wasn't supposed to rain today.'

Darcy frowned. "When did you get the chance to watch the weather report?"

Dean stopped walking. "What?"

"You were thinking about the weather..."

He shook his head slowly. "No, I wasn't."

Darcy's eyes grew large. "Someone else is here," she said in a whisper.

"And they're thinking about..." Dean drifted off as he felt a raindrop hit his hand. "Rain."

She nodded.

"That someone's not a dead someone, is it?"

Darcy shook her head.

"Okay, so... it's a male voice?" Since she had thought it was his, he took a guess.

"Definitely."

"Can't be our high priestess, then. Or Patricia." He started walking on. "Keep listening."

Trudging along through the darkness, through the quickening rain, Darcy found herself moving in front of Dean, leading the way, following the thoughts of the other person. With something she could focus on that wasn't the scary wind or the darkness, she began finding a strength, a courage that was able to keep her pressing on. She also had to focus, trying to block out Dean's thoughts.

Sloshing through the mud, pushing past the brambling bushes and thick brush, Darcy stopped dead, spotting a thrown-together shack. "Dean," she whispered.

"I see it," he told her, moving in front of her. "You know who it is we're dealing with yet?"

She shook her head, and closed her eyes, focusing as best she could on the other thoughts: 'How dare she? What was she thinking? I helped her, and this is how she decided to repay me? By killing me? This'll show her. I'll show her what it's like, give her a taste of her own medicine. She'll rue the day she ever thought about making me her next victim.'

Blinking, she looked at the shack. That voice was familiar... She knew him.

"Darcy?" There was urgency in Dean's voice; he needed to know who, exactly, they were dealing with.

"Yates."

"What?"

"It's Dr. Yates. Patricia was going to have him killed next."

Dean realized why: "Because he was no better than her father, having a wife and going after younger women."

"Yates found out somehow, that Patricia was behind it all."

"How?"

She shrugged. "Wait... Maybe because he knew how to start her up!"

Dean glanced at the shack, which had smoke wafting from the ramshackle chimney. "Shh..."

She lowered her voice, but still spoke quickly, excitedly. "He's always been a believer, Yates has. If Yates knew about her legend, if he knew how to summon her from the dead, then he could've told Patricia, so she could get even with her parents."

"Then, why the book?"

"So no one would know of his discovery. He'd have the power all himself."

Dean nodded slowly. "I really hadn't anticipated having someone else here..."

"I can get Yates out of the way."

"What are you talking about?"

"I can get Yates out of the way. I can get him to follow me. That would leave the priestess for you."

"I don't like this plan," he said, shaking his head.

Darcy, however, was already bounding over towards the shack, sliding the gun into the back of her jeans' waistband. "Dr. Yates?" she called.

"Darcy," he hissed impatiently. Swallowing a curse as she ignored him, he ducked behind the trunk of a huge, decaying tree, turning off his flashlight.

* * *

Yates leaned against the wall, rubbing a yellowish paste onto a gash in his wrist, where he had been forced to add some of his own blood to High Priestess Opal Moon's goblet, watching as she stirred the simmering, smelly concoction. She had assured him it would stop the bleeding.

"Dr. Yates?"

The high priestess stopped immediately. "Followed..."

"No, no, no. I checked and double-checked," Yates said, abandoning his spot, crossing towards the door, to peek out through a thin place in the fabric covering the opening. "It's a former student..."

"Dr. Yates, are you there? I... I need your help."

"Get rid of her," Opal demanded.

"How, exactly?" he asked, looking back at the haggard old woman.

She didn't bother looking up at him, rather focusing on the brew before her. "The blue bottle, on the shelf. Make her drink."

Yates sighed, grabbing it, and sliding it into his sports coat pocket before stepping out. "Darcy? Darcy, is that you?"

"I'm so glad I found you, Dr. Yates. I thought that was you..."

"How did you know?"

Dean cringed. This was not going well...

"I... My friend from home, the one you met?"

"Sure."

"He brought me here. He..." She drifted off, shaking her head. "I can't even say it. I can't even believe it. I-I ran to get away. I thought I saw you coming this way, but I just wasn't sure. I'm _so_ glad to see you."

"Darcy, my dear, you're all right now, you're safe."

"Would you mind, Dr. Yates, taking me home?"

"Did he hurt you? Don't you want to call the police?"

She shook her head. "I just want to go home."

"Very well, dear," he said, easing an arm around Darcy's shoulders. "It's a long way back to my car..."

"I'm sure you'll protect me."

Dean peeked out from around the tree, watching as they started heading off in another direction, as the rain picked up, falling harder, faster, and, worst of all, colder.

"I'm amazed you knew it was me. This bayou can be very dark, very hard to see anyone else."

"I'm just so glad it was you," she lied, wondering just how far away she would need to take him for Dean to do his thing.

"You must be parched," he told her. "Would you care for something to drink?"

"Oh, no, Dr. Yates. Like I said, I just want to go home..."

"You're trembling, my dear."

"This rain..."

"It's just a little whiskey I have in my pocket here. Have some, and you'll be warmer."

She looked up at him, knowing full well that he had some other sort of potion in his pocket, something that would not be good for her in the slightest. "Oh, Dr. Yates, I don't drink."

"Not even for medicinal purposes?" he asked her.

"No, sir."

* * *

Dean could no longer hear Darcy or the professor, and figured it was time for him to make his move. Cautiously, he crossed to the shack. Making sure the shotgun was ready to go, he pushed past the thinning fabric and aimed for the high priestess's mangy-looking head with eyeless sockets.

As Dean pulled the trigger, she vanished. He frowned slightly, pressing further into the cabin. He wasn't entirely sure he had hit her. His eyes expertly darted through the room.

"You come t'kill me, too, chil'?" she asked, in her thick Cajun drawl.

Dean spun around, not seeing her. "Where are you?" He could swear he felt her breath on his ear when she whispered her answer.

"Behind you."

He spun on his heel, and he felt himself being punched in the stomach, flying back across the room, and crashing into a shelf of mason jars, the shotgun leaving his hands.

"You are not da first," she told him. "You will not be da last, eit'er."

"It wasn't your fault, that the spell went bad, back in the 30s. It was their fault. They weren't believers, were they?"

"How you know?" she asked, reappearing in front of him, her head tipped curiously to one side.

"You tried to tell them that it would only work if they believed, right, because they wanted such an advanced skill. Patricia Martin believes you. So does Oliver Yates, right?"

"S'right, chil'."

"Why kill one of your dearest believers? Why kill Patricia Martin?"

"Why kill Oliver? He bringed her t'me."

"So, don't kill either of them."

She tipped her head the other direction, pondering. A sickening grin came to her face. "I kill you, den."

That was not quite what Dean wanted or needed to hear, nor was the scream from outside the cabin. "Darcy..."

* * *

The Road Ahead...

"Hey!" Dean yelled. "She hasn't done anything to you!"

"Dis chil' has power..." she said, tilting her head to one side curiously, looking at Darcy, held against the wall, as though she had captured an insect under glass. "Dis chil' has power I can take," she said hungrily.


	7. Chapter 7

For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Then...

Darcy takes off of work in order to join Dean in the dark bayou, where the high priestess resides and does her magic. Once there, they learn a mortal is in with the priestess, who is cooking up her latest murder. Darcy leads Dr. Yates off to let Dean handle the priestess.

Now...

* * *

In the darkness, Yates kept a tight arm around Darcy's shoulders, guiding her in a very straight path from the voodoo shack. Darcy wasn't sure where she was within the bayou anymore, but she knew that was a direction that she and Dean had not been, and it made her worry that he was only leading her further into the darkness, to ensure no one would find her. His thoughts, while guarded, were worrisome.

"Even if you don't like alcohol, I assure you, it won't be enough to get you drunk. Just enough to keep you warm. My car is still a good while from here," he said, fingering the bottle in his pocket.

"Dr. Yates, I'm fine. So long as I'm with you, and we're on the way to your car, I'll be fine."

"Honestly, must you be so immature?"

"What do you mean?"

"The alcohol won't hurt you. It won't do anything except make you warm. Don't you want to be warm? You want my protection, my safety. Enjoy the warmth I can provide."

"No, thank you," she insisted.

"Darcy, please," he said, pulling the bottle out, thinking about ways to make her drink it.

While she expected to hear, in full, all of the dreadful thoughts Yates was thinking, she heard another voice, another train of thought, one that was running through options quickly, trying to come up with a way to get the upper hand again.

Dean.

She glanced back, towards the shack. "That cabin... is it yours?"

"What?"

"That cabin... It looked warm and safe. Dry."

"Believe me, it's not."

"Who lives there?"

"An old friend. Please, Darcy, have a drink." He tightened his grip on her shoulder to keep her moving forward, and not back.

"Ow, Dr. Yates, you're hurting me..."

"I'm protecting you."

Darcy managed to wiggle out of his grasp, and pulled the gun, holding it on him. "Hands where I can see them," she demanded, in a strong voice, one stronger than she realized she had. What further amazed her was her ability to hold the gun on him steadily, showing no fear.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked, holding his arms in the air.

"On your knees."

"Darcy, c'mon..."

"Now!" she insisted impatiently.

Slowly, Yates lowered himself to the wet ground.

"Face down," she said, still listening to Dean's thoughts, to the fear that took over. She did the only thing she could do, in the hopes of providing Dean the distraction he needed. She screamed, for all she was worth, her best Fay Wray scream.

* * *

Dean watched as the old voodoo high priestess turned her face towards the sound of the scream. While the shotgun was still out of reach, a mason jar wasn't. He wasn't sure what the contents were, but he lobbed them at the high priestess as he slid around to get the shot gun.

She screamed herself, an ear-splitting sound.

"Easy, Opal," he told her, his hands secure on the shotgun as he swung it around, at her.

"No one's called me dat in years."

"Well, you've been dead a long time," he said, getting to his feet.

"Not anymore."

"Technically you're still dead. You're just... resurrected. Temporarily."

"You will die, chil'."

"Not today," he said, blasting her with rock salt.

The high priestess screamed again, getting a full shot. Dean, figuring she would have to take a few minutes to regenerate again, took off out the front door.

"Darcy!" he yelled against the quickening rain, heading towards where he thought she was, where he thought Yates was taking her.

"Over here!" she called.

He sped towards her, not expecting to find her in that position. She was standing with one foot on Yates' back, Yates' face in the mud, and the gun pointed at his head. "I thought you were in trouble."

"I knew you were... You needed a distraction."

"You are going to be the death of me," he told her, shaking his head. "All right, we gotta keep this guy out of our way." He didn't have any rope on him. He glanced over at Darcy, spotting her sneakers. He prepared the shotgun for its next shot menacingly, aiming it at Yates. Yates didn't need to know it was only loaded with rock salt. It could still be intimidating. "I need your shoelaces, Darcy."

Without question, Darcy untied her shoes, and removed the laces as quickly as she could.

"On your feet, Yates."

He slowly stood, eying him evilly.

"Face the tree," Dean said, not impressed with his expression.

He turned, following orders.

"Hug it like your Great Aunt Ida hugged you."

Darcy moved around, tying his hands together once he was hugging the trunk. She tied the knots as tightly as she could, as strongly as she could, doing her best to remember the different kinds from girl scouts ages ago.

"You lied to me, Darcy."

"Yeah, well. Ditto," she said as she fell in step with Dean, heading back for the cabin.

"You can't just leave me here!" Yates yelled, his pleas falling on deaf ears.

"So, you don't have a reading at all on our voodoo bitch?" Dean asked as they neared the cabin.

She shook her head. "Just you and Yates."

"All right, here's the plan: I'm going to shoot the hell out of her with the shotgun, but it'll only stun her. I'm sure she's got a book in there somewhere, with a spell or incantation that'll undo what she's done with regards to keeping herself alive. I need you to find it and I need you to say it."

"Will it be in English?"

He glanced at her, shrugging. She opened her mouth, to ask something further, but Dean was already leading the way into the cabin. The high priestess was back at her table, over her goblet, adding some white powdered substance. "We're back," he said, firing the shotgun into her chest.

This time, however, it didn't do anything, catching Dean mildly off-guard.

"Chil', you think I can't save myself with my own magics?"

"I wasn't gone _that_ long."

Darcy scanned the room for the book, tucking her wet hair behind her ear. There were so many other things there: the mason jars, the colored bottles, the animal pelts. It was overwhelming, like trying to spot the needle in the haystack. Before she realized what was happening, the high priestess raised her hand, and Darcy went flying back into the wall, crashing into the shelf of bottles, feeling the glass embed in her backside. She couldn't decide if it was worse or better, but Darcy found herself remaining suspended there nonetheless.

"Hey!" Dean shouted. "She hasn't done anything to you!"

"Dis chil' has power..." she said, tilting her head to one side curiously, looking at Darcy, held against the wall, as though she had captured an insect under glass. "Dis chil' has power I can take," she said hungrily.

Dean didn't like this new turn of events at all and angrily shoved the table in front of the high priestess over onto her, spilling the contents of her goblet.

She wailed that unearthly wail and Dean went flying again, lost in more broken debris. Returning her attention to Darcy, she tilted her head back, skyward, as she started mumbling an incantation.

"D… Dean," managed Darcy weakly. She couldn't move. She couldn't lower herself off the wall. She felt as though something heavy were descending onto her, pressing against her, keeping her there, draining her.

Slowly, Dean lifted himself from that blast, knowing he would be very sore in the morning. While the high priestess was distracted, he frantically searched for a book, any book, finding a small tome beneath a skunk pelt. He flipped it open. Had it been Latin, it would've been no problem. He wasn't as proficient as John, or even his brother Sammy, but he wasn't too bad.

It looked like it might be Latin-based. He'd dabbled in enough foreign language classes in high school to know that romance languages were born from Latin. Cajun, he knew, had French influences. He flipped through the pages, looking at the graphic pictures accompanying each incantation. He glanced up at Darcy halfway through the book to see her looking sickly and pale. Turning pages faster, he finally found what looked like it might be the right spell. Swallowing hard, he did his best at pronunciation. After all, it looked as though Darcy's life depended on it.

As he started the incantation, the high priestess spun to face him, allowing Darcy a slight reprieve. He sped through the reading, noticing that some of it seemed to be hurting the high priestess, though she was still standing there. He looked again at the page, speaking louder, stronger.

The high priestess cackled. "You do not know the words. The ancient words," she taunted. "Chil', I always win with my magics."

"Except when you were cut into seven pieces and buried in this godforsaken bayou," he said before continuing the reading.

"Chil', you are not a believer. Magics never works for da ones like you."

Dean certainly believed. He believed that she had killed the Martins, and was about to kill Patricia then Darcy. Dean believed she was one badass bitch, and he believed that he had the ultimate knowledge to kill her.

"Death needs life, chil'," she taunted.

He wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but he continued on. He decided his best bet was just to continue on the way he had been. As he read, a cut on his forehead dripped blood down his cheek, dropping onto the page.

Darcy watched with heavy lidded eyes as the high priestess began to flicker, as though she were a candle's flame. "D..." She tried to get his name out, but just couldn't.

He read a little faster, realizing that the high priestess hadn't said anything else, as another drop of his blood landed on the open book. As he finished the incantation, he looked up, in time to see the high priestess trying to grasp at things... anything in order to keep her in the living plane. "Go back to hell, bitch!"

She yelled, though the earsplitting sound was mostly muted. As she disappeared once and for all, the shack fell into further disrepair, what it must've looked like before Yates and Patricia brought her back. The mason jars that had been left standing were now moldy, covered with dust and cobwebs. Darcy fell, groaning as she landed, the laws of gravity back working with her, or, rather, against her.

Dean crossed to her immediately. "Darcy," he whispered, brushing her hair back from her face. "Darcy, look at me..."

She opened her eyes, but only slightly and for a second, holding his gaze ever so briefly before closing them again.

"Darcy!" She was still breathing, which was good, but she seemed lifeless other than that. "Hold on..." He slid the voodoo book into his jacket pocket before scooping her up, cradling her in his arms.

The walk back to the Impala was shorter than he remembered, even in the driving rain. All he focused on was getting Darcy back to civilization. He knew he had seen a hospital somewhere on one of his outings. He'd take her there, to the ER... He'd have to make up some story, because certainly no one in the hospital would believe that the two had just battled a decades' dead voodoo high priestess.

As he set her carefully in the passenger seat, he took a better look at her injuries thanks to the car's interior light. Her coloring was still deathly pale. She had some cuts, some scrapes... He tried to brush the wooden pieces and glass bits from her clothes, hoping again that she would just wake up now that they were safely out of the bayou.

No such luck.

* * *

It had been a week, since Dean had managed to best the voodoo high priestess. A week since Darcy had been admitted to the hospital, with no change to her vitals. And, starting on two weeks since Dean had heard from his father. He was definitely ready to move on from New Orleans, to try to catch back up with John, but at the same time, he felt badly. He didn't want to abandon Darcy, not while she was still in a coma. At least his superficial wounds were nearly healed.

The end of the voodoo priestess meant an end to Patricia Martin. Her death had been chronicled in the paper. After all, father, mother, and daughter all dying within a week was pretty peculiar.

Another favorite of the front page was the story of the missing LSU folklore professor. Dean figured that the good Dr. Yates had passed on in the midst of the bayou somewhere along with the priestess as well.

The way he saw it, everything was settled. Everything was back as it should've been. Except for Darcy. And that bothered him.

He had learned her last name--Ryan--only after having to fill out the admitting papers, finding her ID in her backpack, beneath her iPod and headphones. The hospital administration had taken it upon itself to try to contact her family in Virginia. From what Dean understood, her mother had answered, and stated she didn't have a daughter by that name.

One thing he was really concerned about was whether or not the voodoo priestess had succeeded before he managed to kill her, if Opal Moon took Darcy's telepathy with her to the grave. With Darcy unable to answer, he feared the worst.

He rubbed at the back of his sore neck. Sleeping in a hospital chair wasn't the most conducive to a good night's rest. But, Darcy didn't have anybody and Dean didn't have anybody there either, so he figured they could be there for each other. Or at least, he for her, for right now.

Standing, he figured he'd hit the coffee pot, grab a cup. He had so little else to do. As he walked towards the door, his jacket slipped off the chair, and something spilled out of his pocket.

The voodoo book.

"Huh." He crossed back to his chair, picking it up and sitting down at Darcy's side again. As he started thumbing through the pages, he heard the monitors checking her pulse and blood pressure start to beep faster. "Darcy?" he asked, looking up and closing the book.

With the book closed, the machines returned to the normal pattern, and her pulse and blood pressure dropped back to where they had been as well.

This time, keeping a keen eye on Darcy and her monitors, he opened the book, watching again as her rates increased. He closed the book again. Somehow, her health was connected to it. Damn. He should've figured that out earlier.

He paced the room for a moment, thinking of how to cut the ties that bound them, the book and Darcy. If he destroyed it, maybe she would die. If he left it alone, she could be in a coma forever. Could he take a chance with her life?

That was something Winchesters didn't have to do much of, play God with fellow human beings. With the denizens of hell, that was another story. And he liked Darcy. He didn't want to hurt her.

He looked over at her, resting as comfortably as the doctors could make her, hooked up to an IV tube with electrodes attached to her body and connected to a half dozen monitoring devices. That couldn't be that comfortable, really, Dean decided, grabbing the book and striding out of the room.

He headed down to the Impala, grabbing a few things from the trunk before finding a garbage can in the parking lot, away from the hospital itself. He tore a few pages from the front of the book, noticing that the cover sheet held an interesting inscription: "Property of Dr. O. Yates, LSU Folklore Department."

"You son of a bitch... that's how you raised Opal from her graves--all seven." Sighing, he tossed the book inside and salted it liberally. Pulling out his Zippo, he lit the removed pages, before dropping them onto the book.

He watched as the pages curled, as the smoke began to swirl. It didn't take long for the whole book to disintegrate to ashes. Just to be safe, he doused it with the holy water, tossing the empty bottle in on top.

Putting the salt container in his pocket along with the lighter, he headed back for the hospital and up to Darcy's room. As he got off the elevator at the proper floor, his heart sank to his stomach. Nurses and a doctor or two seemed to be running in and out of her room. Fear fueled his run to her door.

The commotion cleared, and only one doctor remained in the room with Darcy, checking her eyes and asking her questions. Dean let out a sigh of relief. She was awake.

While continuing to speak to the doctor, she looked over at him, and smiled softly. "Dean..."

He slowly entered, looking up at the doctor who nodded to him. "So, when can she go home, Doc?"

"We're going to keep her another day or two, just to make sure she's okay. Everything seems to be in perfect working order now, though." With that, the doctor scribbled in her chart, and headed out.

Dean eased down on the chair next to her, where he'd spent his long vigil. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel wonderful now," she said with a nod.

He looked at her, asking his next question through his thoughts: 'And your gift?'

Her smile grew--quite possibly the most beautiful thing Dean had ever seen. "I've still got it," she murmured.

"Good. I was afraid Opal might've..."

"Nah." She laughed. "I'm tougher than voodoo."

He smiled. "Yeah, you are."

"They said I was out over a week?"

Dean nodded slowly, but kicked himself. "I should've thought of it sooner..."

She didn't follow. "Thought of what?"

"Uh..." He immediately thought about... puppies. "Nothin'. I'm just glad you're okay."

"I figured you'd be long gone by now, to catch up to your dad."

"I wanted to make sure you came through."

"If he's mad at you, tell him it was all my fault, okay?"

He pulled his chair closer to her bedside. "Don't worry."

"So, you headed out now? I mean, I'm healed."

He looked at her for a long moment. "Well, it's almost dinner time, and I figure they gotta bring you some Jell-o, and, y'know, there's always room for Jell-o." He smiled, hearing her soft laughter. "I'll leave first thing tomorrow."

She reached out, finding his hand. "You really didn't have to stay."

He made sure not to think about what had just transpired with the book; he didn't want her to know. "Yeah, I did."

She laughed. "For being asleep so long, I'm tired. Isn't that weird?"

"It's been a long week," Dean acknowledged. "Close your eyes."

* * *

Darcy woke slowly the next morning, with sunlight filtering in through the window blinds. She reached up, rubbing her eyes, remembering too late that she still had an IV tube in one hand. Sighing, she sat up slowly. The room was empty. The chair where Dean had been was... empty.

For a moment, she wondered if it was all just a dream. She managed to press the nurse call button, and waited until someone came in.

"How are we this morning?" asked the woman in the pink scrubs.

"There was a man here last night... did he say anything? Did he leave?"

"I'm afraid so," she said sadly. "But, he asked that I be sure to give you this," she said, pulling a flat present, wrapped in newsprint, from her tray table near the door.

"Oh," she said quietly, taking it. When Darcy said nothing further, the nurse left.

She realized the paper he had wrapped it in was the local paper, describing the disappearance of Yates and the untimely death of Patricia. She wadded the paper up, tossing it towards the garbage can, barely missing it. Inside the package was a CD. A Led Zeppelin CD.

She laughed slightly, looking at the note taped to the back. "My favorite. I thought you might like it. Until next time."

"Dean..." she murmured.

* * *

He was hip deep into Texas, listening to Zeppelin sing about how to Ramble On. He had yet to hear from his Dad, but figured he had some good ideas of where to start looking. What he hadn't counted on, however, was the sudden hauntingly sweet and soft voice that filled his mind, drowning out the loud music. Thoughts of Darcy infiltrated his memory as he wondered if that was really something she was saying at that moment, or just his wishful thinking.

"Dean..."

End.

* * *

Soon...

The War Between the States--On the run from the FBI, the Winchester boys think they've found a safe haven and perhaps a reprieve from work until, that is, they find themselves at the center of a troubling possession--their own.


End file.
